[Info-vax] HP wins Oracle Itanium case

[Paul Sture]

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:39:09 -0400, Stephen Hoffman 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.
> If not earlier.
> Microsoft Access offers ISAM access, as does MySQL, BerkelyDB, dBase and
> a whole pile of other packages.

One key difference (pun unintended) with RMS ISAM files from the ones I 
had worked with previously was that after the initial file load RMS will 
add new records so that key and record data are interspersed physically 
within the file.  IIRC this was the result of a design goal to provide 
fast sequential read access.

This was detailed in the RMS-11 User Guide; unfortunately (IMHO at the 
time) this level of detail didn't reach the VMS 4.0 or later 
documentation.

With modern storage arrays which simply present a bunch of blocks, decent 
buffer and cache sizes probably make more difference today.

-- 
Paul Sture