InterBase

InterBase
Developer(s)	Embarcadero Technologies
Stable release	InterBase 2020 / December 2019; 4 years ago
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Database management system
License	Proprietary
Website	www.embarcadero.com/products/interbase

InterBase is a relational database management system (RDBMS) currently developed and marketed by Embarcadero Technologies. InterBase runs on the Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, and Solaris operating systems as well as iOS and Android.

Technology

InterBase is a SQL-92-compliant relational database and supports standard interfaces such as JDBC, ODBC, and ADO.NET.

History

Multiversion concurrency control before InterBase

Multiversion concurrency control is described in some detail in sections 4.3 and 5.5 of the 1981 paper "Concurrency Control in Distributed Database Systems"^[1] by Philip Bernstein and Nathan Goodman while employed by the Computer Corporation of America. Bernstein and Goodman's paper cites a 1978 dissertation^[2] by D.P. Reed, which describes MVCC and claims it as an original work.

Early years

Jim Starkey was working at DEC on their DATATRIEVE 4th generation language 4GL product when he came up with an idea for a system to manage concurrent changes by many users. The idea simplified the existing problems of locking which were proving to be a serious problem for the new relational database systems being developed at the time.

Although InterBase's implementation is much more similar to the system described by Reed in his MIT dissertation than any other database that existed at the time and Starkey knew Bernstein from his previous position at the Computer Corporation of America and later at DEC, Starkey claims that he arrived at the idea of multiversion concurrency control independently.^[3] According to his blog, Starkey says:

The inspiration for multi-generational concurrency control was a database system done by Prime that supported page level snapshots. The intention of the feature was to give a reader a consistent view of the database without blocking writers. The idea intrigued me as a very useful characteristic of a database system.

Open source

In early 2000, Borland announced that InterBase would be released under open-source, and began negotiations to spin off a separate company to manage the product. The source code for InterBase version 6 was released under a variant of the Mozilla Public License in mid-2000.

With the InterBase division at Borland under new management, the company released a proprietary version of InterBase version 6 and then 6.5. Borland released several updates to the open source code before announcing that it would no longer actively develop the open source project. Firebird, an open source fork of the InterBase 6 code, however, remains in active development.

In 2001, a backdoor was discovered in the software that had been present in all versions since 1994 and then resolved. ^[4]^[5]^[6]

CodeGear

On May 7, 2008, Borland and Embarcadero Technologies announced that Embarcadero had "signed a definitive asset purchase agreement to purchase CodeGear."^[7] The acquisition, for approximately $24.5 million, closed on 30 June 2008.^[8]

Recent releases

References

^ Bernstein, Philip A.; Goodman, Nathan (1981). "Concurrency Control in Distributed Database Systems". ACM Computing Surveys. 13 (2): 185–221. doi:10.1145/356842.356846. S2CID 30874. Retrieved September 21, 2005.
^ Reed, D.P. (1978). Naming and Synchronization in a Decentralized Computer System. MIT dissertation (Thesis). hdl:1721.1/16279. Retrieved November 12, 2022.
^ Starkey, Jim. "Weblog comment". Multiversion Concurrency Control Before InterBase. Archived from the original on October 23, 2007. Retrieved September 21, 2005.
^ "CERT Advisory CA-2001-01 Interbase Server Contains Compiled-in Back Door Account". 11 January 2000. Archived from the original on 18 November 2001.
^ "Backdoor account in Interbase database server allows remote attackers to overwrite arbitrary files using stored procedures". 12 January 2000. Archived from the original on 7 December 2012.
^ "Borland/Inprise Interbase SQL database server contains backdoor superuser account with known password". 11 January 2001. Archived from the original on 17 December 2001.
^ Intersimone, David (2008-05-07). "Community Letter: Embarcadero Technologies agrees to acquire CodeGear from Borland". Archived from the original on 2012-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
^ Bravo, Thoma (2008-07-01). "Embarcadero Technologies Closes Acquisition of CodeGear". Retrieved 2008-07-03.

External links

InterBase product page Archived 2011-04-04 at the Wayback Machine
How to connect with Interbase database with Ole Db

[1] Bernstein, Philip A.; Goodman, Nathan (1981). "Concurrency Control in Distributed Database Systems". ACM Computing Surveys. 13 (2): 185–221. doi:10.1145/356842.356846. S2CID 30874. Retrieved September 21, 2005.

[2] Reed, D.P. (1978). Naming and Synchronization in a Decentralized Computer System. MIT dissertation (Thesis). hdl:1721.1/16279. Retrieved November 12, 2022.

[3] Starkey, Jim. "Weblog comment". Multiversion Concurrency Control Before InterBase. Archived from the original on October 23, 2007. Retrieved September 21, 2005.

[Backdoor-4] "CERT Advisory CA-2001-01 Interbase Server Contains Compiled-in Back Door Account". 11 January 2000. Archived from the original on 18 November 2001.

[5] "Backdoor account in Interbase database server allows remote attackers to overwrite arbitrary files using stored procedures". 12 January 2000. Archived from the original on 7 December 2012.

[6] "Borland/Inprise Interbase SQL database server contains backdoor superuser account with known password". 11 January 2001. Archived from the original on 17 December 2001.

[7] Intersimone, David (2008-05-07). "Community Letter: Embarcadero Technologies agrees to acquire CodeGear from Borland". Archived from the original on 2012-04-15. Retrieved 2008-05-08.

[8] Bravo, Thoma (2008-07-01). "Embarcadero Technologies Closes Acquisition of CodeGear". Retrieved 2008-07-03.

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