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ANNOUNCEMENTS
*** Save the Date - db4objects' Fall 2005 Roadshow ***
- Meet db4objects, local partners and users in person
- Exclusive live presentation of db4o version 5.0 by Carl Rosenberger
August 24 - San Francisco
August 29 - Tokyo
September 15 - Bangalore
September 23 - Munich
September 29 - London
September 30 - Toronto
Pre-register to secure your seat or watch out for further details!
*** Participate in VDC's and db4objects' Market Survey ***
VDC and db4objects conduct an online survey to explore market trends around embeddable object persistence. Click here to participate.
All participants will be entered into a drawing for one of 6 x $50 Amazon.com gift certificates and 25 cool T-Shirts from db4objects!
ARTICLES
-- db4o V 4.6 RELEASED, INTRODUCING DEEP INDEXING --
db4o Version 4.6 is now available as a development version for download from the db4o Download Center.
Deep indexing has been introduced to dramatically improve performance, especially in specific cases of queries against indexed fields. In particular, performance is increased by multiple orders of magnitude for queries with constraints on field values that are more than one attribute away from the class extent of the query.
In benchmarks, querying with this fine-tuned processor against 100,000 objects with 100,000 members and a constraint on object.member.member showed improvement from 4000 ms to 10 ms, hence a 400x acceleration.
-- db4o V 5.0 SNEAK PREVIEW: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK --
We'd like your feedback on the early version of db4o V 5.0! This new version features major enhancements to make db4o an even more native, non-intrusive and embeddable database, with even more powerful zero-administration capabilities.
Particularly, we're working to improve developers' productivity and boost OO industry standardization with "Native Queries," our initiative to express all queries using the native semantics of the programming language (Java/C#/VB.NET), and utilize more native semantics in general, especially on the .NET side.
As planned, the db4o core team has now released a first spike, available as a preview version for download from the db4o Download Center.
The purpose of this preview is to open discussion and gather feedback from the user community, especially about the API enhancements. (This is not a runnable or optimized implementation of the API, i.e. not for use in development and production.)
Native queries are 100% refactorable, 100% typesafe, and 100% compile-time checked. The V5 M1 demo runs by instantiating each object of an extent from the database, and will therefore not be very performant yet. We will restore the current level of S.O.D.A. query performance that you are used to in the final V5 release by analyzing the Java bytecode/.NET IL code of native queries internally to generate a S.O.D.A. query graph, which will be executed against database indexes.
Another upgrade we've executed to make db4o more native and less intrusive is to change the inheritance hierarchy of the ObjectSet class, returned by db4o queries, to extend java.util.List, java.util.Iterator and System.Collections.IList.
V5 for .NET will be available with both camelCase and the newly introduced PascalCase method names. We recommend new users of our product to start with PascalCase, while existing users can either stick with camelCase or choose to switch. We will soon supply all users with our conversion mechanism, so you can switch effortlessly at any time down the road. Transparent activation will come with V5 but is not yet visible in the M1 version.
The V5 development release is scheduled for October 2005, and the production release for early November 2005. db4o Version 5.0 is 100% backward compatible to V 4.x -- meaning you will not need to change a single line of code when you switch from Version 4.x to Version 5.0.
-- db4objects' CVS HAS MOVED SERVERS --
The db4o development CVS has moved to a different server. Please check out here to get the new access information.
As a result, we can now:
(1) See great improvements in our testing capabilities against all common Java JDKs by separating the db4o Java core into multiple CVS projects: db4oj, db4ojdk1.2, and db4ojdk5
(2) Add Version 5.0 functionality to the HEAD branch of the CVS. We are using source paths to be able to develop versions 4.x and 5 concurrently without branching.
If you use Eclipse for developing Java, you should simply be able to check out all db4oj projects with Eclipse. The only special requirement is the need for JREs with the following two names configured in Eclipse: 1.3, 5. Please read here for specific instructions.
-- NEW CUSTOMERS: MR CONTROLS PERFECTS SCADA SYSTEMS WITH db4o --
MR Controls, based in Calgary, Canada, is a vendor-neutral System Integrator specializing in SCADA and control systems. Its main customers hail from the power utility and the oil and gas industries in Canada, the United States, South America and the Middle East.
Using db4o, MR Controls overcomes many of the hurdles encountered by conventional SCADA systems. For example, because db4o takes advantage of true object-oriented programming, MR Controls can drastically reduce SCADA system startup times, to a fraction of that required by other products. The company also increases the productivity of its developers and enhances the flexibility of its software modules for reuse and customization. And db4o also allows MR Controls to provide high-performance storage and retrieval of historical, statistical, alarm and event data -- all within in a single, scalable package.
-- db4objects MARKS ONE YEAR OF INCORPORATION --
Happy Anniversary to us! db4objects, Inc. proudly ventured into its second year of existence as a commercial company on July 22, 2005.
Reviewing the first year, our entire team is extremely happy with the progress in all areas, from product development (advancing Version 2.9 to 5.0 M1), to marketing (more than 200,000 downloads and more than 5,000 registered users), to commercial sales (more than two dozen new major commercial customers that enabled the company to periodically break even from its outset.)
The management believes that its unique open-source/dual-license business model has catapulted the db4o embedded object database to success. Keys to the company's winning strategy are detailed in a new business backgrounder, available for free download.
Of course, this jumpstart was only possible because db4o already had more than five years of product history, nearly 100 initial customers, and an engaged community supporting development since the very early days of the technology.
A big THANK YOU to the db4o community and the db4o core team for this great first year of business!
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We appreciate your feedback, you can email us. Please let us know what you are thinking, and how we can help you. And please don't forget to share your db4o success stories with us!
With best regards
The db4objects team.
www.db4o.com
newsletter@db4o.com
Phone +1 (650) 577-2340
1900 S Norfolk Street, Suite 350
San Mateo, CA 94403 (USA)