UNIFY 2000: what is it?
Emmanuel Baechler
Hi,
One of our potential suppliers is distributing a package (a medical
laboratory information managment system) which is based upon a
relational DBMS called UNIFY 2000.
The trouble is that I did never heard of it before.
So, my questions are the following:
- What is UNIFY 2000?
- How does it compare with more conventional RDMBS (ORACLE, Sybase,
CA-Ingres, Informix and so on)?
- Which server and whoch clients does this RDBMS support?
- How long does it exist?
- What are the prespectives for its future (and for the company
realeasing it)?
- Are there some OLAP tools (like Improptu or GQL) which are compatible
with UNIFY 2000?
Any help will be greatly appreciated
--
Emmanuel Baechler. | Tel.: ++41-21-314-29-06
Etat de Vaud | Fax: ++41-21-314-45-55
Service des Hospices Cantonaux | e-mail: baec...@lia.di.epfl.ch
Office Informatique | or: baec...@liasun6.epfl.ch
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CH-1011 Lausanne Switzerland
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Gun control laws don't die, people do.
Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
Mike Eggleston
> Hi,
>
> One of our potential suppliers is distributing a package (a medical
> laboratory information managment system) which is based upon a
> relational DBMS called UNIFY 2000.
>
> The trouble is that I did never heard of it before.
>
> So, my questions are the following:
>
> - What is UNIFY 2000?
It is a relational database and is the follow on product from Unify
5.x, which is still a product that is marketed and in use, but Unify
2000 is a more conventional, full featured relational database.
> - How does it compare with more conventional RDMBS (ORACLE, Sybase,
> CA-Ingres, Informix and so on)?
I've used Oracle, Sybase, Informix and Ingres previously prior to
using Unify 2000 at my current position and I find that Unify 2000 is
comparable with Oracle version 6. Unify 2000 does not have triggers
or stored procedures, but talking with a Unify engineer yesterday, he
said that stored procedures are being considered for the Unify 2000
version 3.0 release.
The most current version of Unify 2000 that I know of is version
2.5CB.
Unify 2000 does have embedded sql, 4GL add-ons, the ability to spread
the physical data files and recovery files across multiple devices,
on-line backup, etc.
One feature that I find really neat about Unify 2000's extension to
standard sql is the extra command of 'REGLIKE'. This command is
similar to the standard 'LIKE' command in a 'SELECT' statement, but
'REGLIKE' allows you to specify the 'SELECT' criteria based on unix
regular expressions. I know of no other database with this capability.
> - Which server and whoch clients does this RDBMS support?
I don't know.
> - How long does it exist?
I don't know.
> - What are the prespectives for its future (and for the company
> realeasing it)?
Unify 2000 will remain a very integral and important part of Unify
Corporation's products and I believe will always be supported and
maintained.
> - Are there some OLAP tools (like Improptu or GQL) which are compatible
> with UNIFY 2000?
I don't know.
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated
--
--
Mike Eggleston Walker Financial, Inc.
(817)732-0398 3909 Hulen Street
(817)735-1726 (FAX) Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Only my opinions.
David Platt
baec...@lia.di.epfl.ch says...
>
>
>Hi,
>
>One of our potential suppliers is distributing a package (a medical
>laboratory information managment system) which is based upon a
>relational DBMS called UNIFY 2000.
>
>The trouble is that I did never heard of it before.
>
>So, my questions are the following:
>
>- What is UNIFY 2000?
technical consultant working for Unify Corporation. Prior to coming to
work for Unify I used the first RDBMS product that Unify sold at another
employer as early as 1986 and that was Version 3.2 of Unify RDBMS. That
is currently in Version 5.0.7 and is still supported and sold by the
company.
For those of you that don't know, Unify Corporation sold the first
commercially available non-application specific RDBMS for Unix. The
company was founded in 1980. A fifteen year old company in this business
is certainly pretty good.
Unify 2000 was released in 1990 as a follow on product to Unify RDBMS.
Unify RDBMS is a menu driven environment with built in menuing and data
entry screens for simple tables. It has a C library interface and a 4GL
that is integrated into the system.
Unify 2000 is an extension of Unify RDBMS in a number of ways. It is
ANSI compliant, supports SQL connection from clients, supports embedded
SQL and has the follow on 4GL product to the Accell/IDS component of
Unify RDBMS, Accell/SQL. Accell/SQL is the leading 4GL product on the
market today with character, OpenLook, Motif and Windows interfaces
available. There are over 300,000 runtime licenses. Accell/SQL is a
database independent 4GL and there are versions that interface to Unify
2000, Oracle 6/7, Sybase 4/10, Informix 5/6 and Ingres 6.2.
>- How does it compare with more conventional RDMBS (ORACLE, Sybase,
> CA-Ingres, Informix and so on)?
I have used Unify 2000 (obviously) since I work for Unify and have also
worked with Sybase, Oracle and Ingres (as well as other RDBMS packages
including Empress). Unify 2000 currently does not support stored
procedures or triggers but has a rich security system (multiple schemas
with group/user privileges). It does have a C library interface,
supports embedded SQL, network connections, databases that span multiple
devices (including the ability to use raw disk devices to overcome the
Unix file system limitation of a single file of 4GB), is highly tunable
and in most applications and environments outperforms the "other"
databases. One of the richest feature sets that Unify 2000 has is its
multitude of access methods. It supports direct access (using a row id),
hash table access (for unique key specifications), b-tree access,
sequential access and link indices. Link indices also provide
referential integrity and allow direct access from a parent record to the
child record or from the child record back to the parent record. Unlike
Sybase, it provides true record level locking to obtain maximum
concurrency in a multi-user environment. I really love the database
because it is so easy to get a database created, the schema entered and
up and running in a very short period of time. With a pre-designed
database, I have created a database, entered the table specification for
23 tables and started loading data in less than 30 minutes. By the way,
it is the number one database in Asia.
>- Which server and whoch clients does this RDBMS support?
Unify 2000 (as a server) is available for DEC Alpha OSF, HP 9000-700
HP-UX, HP 9000-800 HP-UX, IBM RS6000 AIX 3.2.5, Intel 386/486/Pentium
SCO Unix/ODT 3.2v4.2, Sun Solaris 2.3, SunOS 4.1.3, Bull DPX/2 BOS2.1, DG
Aviion DG UX 5.4.3, DEC Station Ultrix 4.3A, ICL DRS 6000 DRS-NX 6.1.1,
NCR 3000 SVR4, Intel Interactive SVR3, Pyramid MIS S DC/OSX 1.1, Sequent
Dynix PTX 2.0, Unisys 6000 SVR4 1.2. This is the current product
availability list for Version 2.4/2.5 of the RDBMS. There are other
platforms supported by Version 1.x of the product.
Clients may be connected via TCP/IP to the server running Unify 2000.
The Accell/SQL 4GL client runs on all of the platforms above and on
Windows 3.1 as a client to a Unify 2000 server.
>- How long does it exist?
Unify 2000 was released in 1990.
>- What are the prespectives for its future (and for the company
> realeasing it)?
I would say that Unify 2000 will continue to be supported for quite a
while with some enhancements being made to the product. The future for
the company appears to be quite good due the Client/Server development
tools that the company develops and markets. As I indicated earlier,
Accell/SQL is the number 1 database 4GL product in the market and its
successor, VISION is a GUI Client/Server second generation RADD tool that
provides cross-platform deployment of applications.
>- Are there some OLAP tools (like Improptu or GQL) which are compatible
> with UNIFY 2000?
As I indicated above, Accell/SQL is available along with Unify 2000 for
character, Motif, OpenLook and Windows application development.
Accell/SQL is an exception based development environment where the
developer does not have to code normal database query, insert, modify and
delete operations and includes a screen generation tool.
Unify VISION, a second generation Scalable RADD Client/Server development
tool, has complete connectivity to Unify 2000. VISION also has
connectivity to Oracle, Sybase SQL Server, Informix, Ingres, DB2 (via MDI
Gateway) and ODBC (certified with MS-Access, dBASE/IV, Watcom SQL).
VISION is also an event-driven, exception-based development tool with a
full graphic development and runtime environment. Widgets include text
fields, list boxes, drop down list boxes, combo boxes, drop-down combo
boxes, radio groups, sliders, canvases (for graphic images), hot spots,
lines and boxes. Development versions of Unify VISION are available for
Solaris 2.3, SunOS 4.1.3, HP 9000-700 series on HP-UX 9.0, DEC/Alpha on
OSF/1 3.0, IBM RS6000 under AIX 3.2.5 and Windows 3.1/3.11. Deployment
(runtime) versions are available for all of the above platforms and for
Macintosh 68xxx under System 7 (and PowerMac running in 68xxx mode).
Applications developed on one platform are fully transportable and binary
compatible with any of the deployment platforms.
>
>Any help will be greatly appreciated
>--
Alexey G. Dimoglo
: >- What is UNIFY 2000?
skiped...
: Unify 2000 (as a server) is available for DEC Alpha OSF, HP 9000-700
: HP-UX, HP 9000-800 HP-UX, IBM RS6000 AIX 3.2.5, Intel 386/486/Pentium
: SCO Unix/ODT 3.2v4.2, Sun Solaris 2.3, SunOS 4.1.3, Bull DPX/2 BOS2.1, DG
: Aviion DG UX 5.4.3, DEC Station Ultrix 4.3A, ICL DRS 6000 DRS-NX 6.1.1,
: NCR 3000 SVR4, Intel Interactive SVR3, Pyramid MIS S DC/OSX 1.1, Sequent
: Dynix PTX 2.0, Unisys 6000 SVR4 1.2. This is the current product
: availability list for Version 2.4/2.5 of the RDBMS. There are other
: platforms supported by Version 1.x of the product.
One more questions: Can you compare Unify with other databases such as
Informix, Oracle, Gupta , etc. If is'not dificult for you, help me
select database. I'm interesting criterion of database such as price,
productivity comparing with other databases. If you have data about
it, let me know. Thank you very much.
Sincerely your,
Alexey Dimoglo.
a...@carrier.kiev.ua
Mike Eggleston
In article <3oi7a2$3...@merin.carrier.kiev.ua> a...@merin.carrier.kiev.ua (Alexey G. Dimoglo) writes:
> David Platt (djp...@cais.com) wrote: : >- What is UNIFY 2000?
> skiped...
> : Unify 2000 (as a server) is available for DEC Alpha OSF, HP
> 9000-700 : HP-UX, HP 9000-800 HP-UX, IBM RS6000 AIX 3.2.5, Intel
> 386/486/Pentium : SCO Unix/ODT 3.2v4.2, Sun Solaris 2.3, SunOS
> 4.1.3, Bull DPX/2 BOS2.1, DG : Aviion DG UX 5.4.3, DEC Station
> Ultrix 4.3A, ICL DRS 6000 DRS-NX 6.1.1, : NCR 3000 SVR4, Intel
> Interactive SVR3, Pyramid MIS S DC/OSX 1.1, Sequent : Dynix PTX 2.0,
> Unisys 6000 SVR4 1.2. This is the current product : availability
> list for Version 2.4/2.5 of the RDBMS. There are other : platforms
> supported by Version 1.x of the product.
> One more questions: Can you compare Unify with other databases such
> as Informix, Oracle, Gupta , etc. If is'not dificult for you, help
> me select database. I'm interesting criterion of database such as
> price, productivity comparing with other databases. If you have data
> about it, let me know.
I have used Ingres, Oracle, Sybase and Informix and am now using Unify
2000. I find that all the features that I would use in a unix,
relational database exist in Unify 2000 except for stored procedures
and triggers. Though I would not necessarily use triggers, I know
that some find them useful.
Unify 2000 does have some tunable parameters and its optimizer is not
as good as Oracle's, but it does have the capability to split data
files and log files across multiple drives.
All things considered, I feel that it is a good database. It could
use a better optimizer and sorely needs stored procedures.
Mike
David Platt
says...
>One more questions: Can you compare Unify with other databases such as
>Informix, Oracle, Gupta , etc. If is'not dificult for you, help me
>select database. I'm interesting criterion of database such as price,
>productivity comparing with other databases. If you have data about
As I said in my original message, I have worked with other RDBMSs like
Oracle, Sybase and Empress. From everything that I have seen so far,
Unify 2000 typically beats any of the other databases in the performance
area (partly due to its rich and robust suite of access methods) and in
its ease of database creation, data dictionary setup and administration.
Everyone that is an Oracle DBA and knows Unify 2000 that I have spoken to
have said that Unify 2000 is far easier to administer both during the
database setup phase and in day-to-day operation.
One very nice thing about the Unify 2000 product is that when Embedded
SQL is used (or any other SQL connection such as Accell/SQL 4GL or
VISION, the graphics interface Client/Server package that Unify has), the
database server chooses the most efficient access method based on the
design of the database and the selection criteria used.
Chris Anderson
says...
>One more questions: Can you compare Unify with other databases such as
>Informix, Oracle, Gupta , etc. If is'not dificult for you, help me
>select database. I'm interesting criterion of database such as price,
>productivity comparing with other databases. If you have data about
>it, let me know. Thank you very much.
Price can be gotten from our sales offices. Judging from your address, it
appears that you are in the former Soviet Union. Taking a wild stab, I'd
say that the nearest office to you is probably our Netherlands office:
Unify Netherlands
+31-3473-70052
P.O. Box 9
4130 EA Vianen
The Netherlands
Henny Van Galen is the sales manager at that office, and he can certainly
answer any questions you may have about price, availability, etc.
I'll let others comment on comparisons of Unify 2000 against other
databases. My comments are suspect, of course.
Chris
--
+------------------------------------------------------------+
| Chris Anderson c...@unify.com |
| Unify Corporation U.S. Support Manager |
+------------------------------------------------------------+