Reasons why you should use InterBase, the database hidden gem

Since Embarcadero’s acquisition of Borland in 2008, there have been many technological advances and performance enhancements made to InterBase to make it a compelling database to use.

InterBase 2020 is a fast, scalable, embeddable SQL database that includes data security, disaster recovery and change synchronisation. The four editions cater for a broad range of different deployment scenarios.

InterBase Server is a network-ready solution. The Desktop edition shares the same core but the licence permits local database connections only. Two other editions, InterBase ToGo and IBLite, allow you to embed the InterBase Kernel in your application during development by linking to the InterBase libraries. They share the same libraries and are ideal for mobile applications that need to move data storage offline.

In a recent Embarcadero blog post, Jon Aaesenden highlighted the top five reasons to use InterBase:

Platform diversity

Since the 2007 mobile revolution, software development has changed drastically. There is now a much greater need for software to be deployed to different operating systems and hardware platforms.

Since the 80s, InterBase has been available for multiple computer platforms such as a large Unix box or smaller units like Apollo or the Commodore Amiga (remember those!). And now InterBase targets Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS. It also supports OS connectivity and is easy to install and maintain.

Embedded computing used to be a niche mostly dominated by electrical engineers but it has become mainstream since the advent of IoT and the availability of systems on chips and embedded boards. InterBase covers a range of embedded devices such as ARM and x86. InterBase is well-placed to meet the demands of small devices on account of its performance capabilities, reliability and security.

Change Views

Change Views is a useful feature that looks after notifications and feedback. It’s based on a data subscription model and enables you to define criteria for the changes you wish to be informed about. You can define a query to highlight what has changed since you last accessed it. Change Views only retrieves what has changed, improving performance and responsiveness.

Tablespaces

Tablespaces enable database administrators to re-organise where tables and indexes are physically stored in the database files. This is handy if you’re managing a very large database that’s accessed 24/7 by thousands of users. The ability to delegate authentication data to an SSD disk is a great plus for performance and helps save time.

UDF native functions

User-Defined functions (UDF) enable developers to expand the capability of their queries. They’ve been part of the InterBase API for a while, making InterBase more versatile. A UDF is a normal native library where developers can implement the functions they need. They can be used side-by-side with the standard-compliant SQL functions. The database is customisable and allows developers to expand and interface directly with the database engine at a low level.

Security

Unlike other database engines that operate with file-level binary read/write encryption, InterBase also supports database and column-level encryption.

Read Jon’s blog in full here.

Grey Matter is proud to be an Embarcadero Master Reseller for UK and Ireland. Please contact our licensing specialist to learn more about InterBase and to get pricing; call +44 (0) 1364 655123 or email [email protected].