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VistaDB Compare To...

Overview

Developers can use various database solutions including Microsoft Jet/Access, SQL Server, SQL Server Desktop Engine, SQL Server Compact (SQL Everywhere and SSEv), the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE), Borland's BDE, XML files, and various ISAM and legacy Xbase products to manage data. VistaDB has been designed with all these products in mind and has been specifically engineered to overcome the various deficiencies found in each.

VistaDB is ...

 Excellent alternative to:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
  (Formerly SQL Server 2005 Everywhere and SSEv)
• Microsoft Jet and Access
• Xbase and ISAM (Apollo, Advantage, CodeBase, dBASE, FoxPro, Paradox)
• XML data stores
• WinFS

 Possible alternative to:

• MSDE and SQL Server 2005 Express
• Midrange databases (Cache, FairCom, MySQL, Pervasive, PostgreSQL, Sybase)

 Not an alternative to:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005, ORACLE and DB2

ISAM and Xbase

The smaller footprint products are primarily ISAM and Xbase type database solutions, where Xbase collectively refers to data engines that support legacy FoxPro, dBASE, Clipper and Paradox data files. Xbase is based on ISAM (Indexed Sequential Access Method), which is a file management architecture that allows records to be accessed sequentially in the order they were entered or by way of an active index that orders the records on a different keys or columns.

Borland BDE

The built-in database for the BDE is Paradox presents Borland developers with 4 unique problems:

1. No client/server support available to properly support developing multi-user network applications
2. Notorious for losing data inexplicably through its caching mechanism
3. Requires the BDE (Borland Database Engine) to be installed and configured on each work station
4. BDE is ~30MB in size

The BDE is Borland's database connectivity technology that consists of multiple technologies and products combined into one. The BDE provides connectivity technology to access various databases plus it includes the actual data engines for dBASE and Paradox. Borland has deprecated the BDE several years ago.

VSAM

ISAM was followed by VSAM (Virtual Storage Access Method) and along with Xbase, is old technology that pre-dates relational databases such as VistaDB.

As anyone who has used these technologies will tell you, the problem with Xbase and ISAM is data loss, index corruption and weak multi-user support. Some Xbase databases have been retrofitted or extended to support .NET, and some Xbase products have even added Data Dictionary support to mimic how an RDBMS works. This is an after thought design that uses various tricks on the file format extend Xbase.

Unless you need to support legacy data files, these are not forward looking solutions. It makes no sense to use 20-year old database technology with the very latest development platform. A much better and more forward-looking solution is to use a modern RDBMS such as VistaDB, which was designed with .NET in mind.

Jet/Access

Jet/Access with .MDB files suffer from the same pitfalls as ISAM and Xbase. The one good feature about Jet and ISAM engines is that they are generally fast, but their speed often comes at the cost of data and index corruption or orphan locks. Anyone that has used Jet has probably experienced Jet's notorious record and file lock problems and poor ability to manage databases in network or multi-user environments.

The VistaDB data engine is more robust than ISAM and Jet/Access for both single and multi-user data management, and the VistaDB .VDB data store is more robust than .DBF and .MDB database files. As a true RDBMS, VistaDB does not suffer from the pitfalls of index corruption, record locking and multi-user issues that plague ISAM, Xbase and Jet/Access.

MSDE

MSDE is Microsoft's desktop data engine, which was designed to test SQL Server applications on the desktop. The MSDE has a very large 70MB footprint for desktop or embedded development and requires the same configuration and administration as SQL Server. The large size makes the MSDE a poor solution for distribution over the Internet, since end-users would need to download 70MB of MSDE files, install them, and then finally configure the MSDE before they could run your application.

In contrast, VistaDB's small 400KB footprint is 100 times smaller than the MSDE, and requires no configuration or administration to run. VistaDB features Copy 'n Go!™ deployment, which requires that 1 or 2 files be copied along with your WinForms EXE or ASP.NET DLL.

• VistaDB engine (VistaDB20.DLL is 450KB). Required.
• VistaDB ADO.NET Provider (VistaDB.Provider.DLL is ~140KB). Required.
• Your application's VistaDB .VDB databases (25KB empty database). Optional since databases can be created by your application at run-time.

SQL Server, ORACLE, DB2

VistaDB does not compete directly with SQL Server, ORACLE, DB2 and other enterprise type database systems. These databases are for developing large scale database applications, which is not what VistaDB is designed to support. Even though VistaDB is powerful and provides great performance, these enterprise database products deliver the power needed for large scale enterprise level computing. In addition, these enterprise products are often deeply rooted in an organization's strategic plans so switching to a new database is usually not an option. In these situations, don't switch to VistaDB. Instead, use VistaDB as an alternative database for building smaller applications within your organization. Not all corporate applications require the horsepower of enterprise databases and in these cases, VistaDB is a great solution.

VistaDB can be used to downsize some databases into smaller, more cost-effective systems. In a corporate environment, VistaDB enables DBA's to eliminate smaller databases that don't require administration which allows administrators to focus on managing the larger, more mission critical databases.

VistaDB could also be used to build lightweight, easy-to-deploy demo or evaluation editions of applications that use an enterprise database. Additionally, VistaDB could be used to create full-featured entry-level editions of enterprise database applications. Whichever your need, VistaDB provides a good alternative for .NET developers. And since VistaDB includes a managed ADO.NET Data Provider, switching databases is easy when you code directly to ADO.NET. This allows you to migrate your data from VistaDB to, for example, SQL Server, if the need arises.