[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh at hoffmanlabs.invalid> wrote:
> On 2012-08-28 16:58:35 +0000, Bob Koehler said:

>>    Blows away folks when I access a keyed-indexed file "sequentially".

> You're either being humored with that "blown away", or you're 
> discussing this with folks that are ignorant of how databases work.
> What you're discussing goes back to the S in the IBM Indexed Sequential 
> Access Method ISAM scheme, and which well predates RMS.

And which uses IBM CKD (Count Key Data) disks where keys are
written before data blocks on the disk. You can ask the disk
hardware to search for a block with a given key, or with
a key greater than or equal to the given key. (The index
is sorted to make the search easier.)

ISAM files are also interesting in that the index contains 
disk block addresses such that the files are unmovable.
(There are special programs that know how to backup 
and restore an ISAM file, and rewrite the index as needed.)

-- glen