Old VMS Databases Never Die

Old VMS Databases Never Die: "November 29, 2004
By Drew Robb

Like old soldiers, it could be said that old databases never truly die.

But instead of fading away like their military counterparts, some databases conceived in the 1980s are still very much a part of the IT fabric of many large enterprises. Particularly on the OpenVMS platform, products such as Rdb, Ingres and even System 1032 still can be found in various nooks and crannies of the technology universe.

The Rdb database, for example, claims millions of users worldwide -- more than 2,000 companies are using it, some with more than 60,000 users, according to Jim Steiner, senior director of product management at Oracle Inc. of Redwood City, Calif. Oracle purchased Rdb from Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) more than a decade ago. Many thought that would be the end of the popular database, which was then Oracle's major competitor. But Rdb survived and may now be set for a new lease on life, thanks to a renaissance in VMS via its impending port to Itanium 2-based servers.

''I have used SQL Server and Oracle 7 and 8, and there is nothing even close to Rdb,'' says John Creed, database manager at Kittles Home Furnishings Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana. ''There is one obvious disadvantage though -- you cannot run Rdb on any platform that OpenVMS doesn't support.''"