[ANNOUNCEMENT] Alpha testers wanted for new jBASE/T24/Oracle file system

[Jim Idle]

I have been hinting for some time about a new file system that my company, Temporal Wave, has developed for jBASE/T24.

This product is now at the stage where I need some 'tame' Alpha testers to thrash the system on various platforms; hence this email.

The file system is a drop in replacement for jBASE files and jBASE transaction journaling, with the following features:

• It is based on Oracle technology that runs on many thousands of servers all over the world;
• It is a journaled, auto-recovering file system that can be configured to be either extremely robust or completely memory based on a file by file basis.
• If the system crashes it guarantees to recover any transactions that were committed (and each WRITE is a transaction unless you group them with TRANS-START etc).
• Files do not require sizing and auto-grow without the performance penalties associated with dynamic HASH files;
• As well as standard jBASE files, it also provides transaction journaled backed message queues (it is in fact the same underlying technology as Rendezvous fi you are using that already)
• Files can be backed up using standard system commands such as dd, tar, etc, even while the system is running (no need for database pausing and so on)
• It is self administering and auto-recovering, which means that if you ship it as part of an application, there is nothing to teach the end-users (in fact there is less because there is no file corruption to worry about).
• It will provide automatic hot-standby with no complicated configuration and in a much better way than current jBASE configurations;
• It provides data at rest encryption (that isn't crackable in 10 minutes ;-);
• It is very very much faster than anything you have right now - this will solve a lot of performance problems just by using it;
  
• Temporal Wave has a partnership agreement with Oracle and Temporal Wave support is backed by Oracle support worldwide.
• It will be relatively cheap;
• It will be a painless migration;
• You all need this whether you are a 2 user Windows installation or a 6000 user bank - seriously, you do, and you can try it for free;

Before releasing this product I wish to conduct serious stress testing on real world hardware/applications and so I need some volunteers who are willing to provide the following:

• Some testing time with their applications;
• Discussion time regarding documentation, installation procedures, trying out import/conversion and so on;
• Ability to provide remote command shell login for debug/test/compilation (ssh, VPN etc is fine) and allow loading of any necessary software (or be willing to load it);
• Realization that this is Alpha testing and live deployment is not going to happen until documentation and admin commands are complete;

I need one volunteer organization in the following categories:

• AIX 5/6
• HPUX
• Windows Server
• Solaris/SunOS
• Linux
• Other (if anyone is running anything else still, such as Tru64)

I am also looking for variance on these platforms between jBASE 3.x, 4.x and 5.x (the system supports all of these) as well as 32 and 64 bit. If you have a need to seriously improve performance and reliability (as in you have a some problem in this regard right now), then I am also interested in hearing from you.

Volunteers will receive discount on any future purchase, but a commitment to purchase is not required to participate. As I expect that the volunteer list will be over-subscribed, I will give preference to people/organizations that I already know and trust (OK - scratch the trust bit), larger sites (large databases, many files, big hardware), and sites with 'better' testing hardware such as larger system memory (other than Windows or Linux where I am likely to have better hardware than you because half my friends work at Intel :-P )

This first phase will concentrate on the basics of file creating, performance, recovery, message queues and general usage such as configuration. A later phase will cover online backups, encryption and administration, and a final phase will cover high availability options.

I want to emphasize that this is a major step forward for all jBASE installations. Current file systems in jBASE, UniVerse and even Cache cannot compete with this in terms of performance (a lot of time went into design.) Reliability, recovery and quality are of the highest standards. Source code licenses will also be available for the extra paranoid.

The system is scalable for the smallest installations and the largest, as the need for reliable, maintenance free, recovering journaled file systems is universal. Single user Windows sites tend to be the sites where Bob or Alice just turn off the machine without thinking; if you are running your bank on this then you want complete reliability and zero downtime. File corruptions are not really an option for anyone.

So, if you are interested in participating and feel that you can offer some time and a shell login (other than Windows and Linux) then please contact me off list at jimi at temporal-wave dot com to see if you qualify. Time is more important than technical qualifications, and it is even OK if you are Australian (so that means you are OK on all fronts Hogden). If you are interested, I advise you to tell me sooner rather than later as I already know that there is a lot of interest in this [apologies for sounding like a used car salesman].

Feel free to ask questions either here in the list or off-list privately; I welcome them as I think I have thought of everything and am always surprised when I realize that I haven't ;-)

Jim

[Kevin Powick]

On Mar 10, 6:21 pm, Jim Idle <j...@temporal-wave.com> wrote:

> I think I have thought of everything and am always surprised when I realize that I haven't ;-)
>

Does this apply to the product as well? :-)

It does sound good, though we're not in a position to test. Will this
always be a 3rd party solution or do you envision jBASE licensing the
technology to be a standard feature of a future version?

Since you mention licensing, is this just for code "escrow" or is the
product designed in such a way that it can be adapted for use by other
MV vendors?

--
Kevin Powick

[Jim Idle]

Kevin Powick wrote:

On Mar 10, 6:21 pm, Jim Idle <j...@temporal-wave.com> wrote:

  

I think I have thought of everything and am always surprised when I realize that I haven't ;-)

    

Does this apply to the product as well? :-)
  

Nah - I have thought of everything ;-). Rather I should say that having watched how people need to use the system for 17 years or so, I think I have a good grasp of the pain points ;-) This is essentially what the J5 file system was gong to be before I left jBASE.

It does sound good, though we're not in a position to test.  Will this
always be a 3rd party solution or do you envision jBASE licensing the
technology to be a standard feature of a future version?
  

I am not against it going in to the standard product by any means, but of course I am trying to make a little money by producing something that everyone really needs.

Since you mention licensing, is this just for code "escrow" or is the
product designed in such a way that it can be adapted for use by other
MV vendors?
  

For escrow basically - some companies will feel a lot better about having the source code available to them - I don't intend for the source code license to be prohibitively expensive.

I would produce a UniVerse or Unidata version but those products only have interfaces to read from them as their internals are spread about like road kill and don't support reading and writing to external systems, so I can't really do that. I did take a look at some other systems, such as QM, but that product just isn't real world enough for me to want to put my name to it (apologies to any QM fans but it's like stepping back in time 25 years - that's the problem when there are too few people working on something.)

Pity you don't have time to test it as I think you would be just the kind of person I would like to give it a try.

Jim