What is a good database for very large collections? (was Re: XSL/ECMAscript (was RE: Frontier as a scalable XML repository (was Re: Is XML dead already or what?))

[Michael Fuller]

On Tue, Feb 02, 1999, Rick Jelliffe asked:
> What is a good database for XML?

[Warning: product-related discussion follows.]

Why not look at systems that are built around an SGML data model,
rather than built over the top of a OODBMS or RDBMS model?

SIM, the "Structured Information Manager", is a commercial XML/SGML system
produced here at RMIT (I am not personally involved in its development but
work with people who are; they are the source for some of the following;
see http://www.simdb.com/ for more information).

For me, the key issue is that SIM stores and parses XML documents natively.

SIM is optimised to efficiently store, index, and retrieve XML/SGML
documents from multi-gigabyte collections under heavy concurrent
user loads. XML/SGML documents can also be formated or manipulated
using an SGML scripting language (free from http://ace.mds.rmit.edu.au/).
XML/SGML document structure can be directly queried.

Although SIM does not directly AI and linguistic software, it does have free
text querying, ranking, lots of text searching functions; it also has the
ability to define standing queries so that new records that match a standing
query are brought to the attention of users (normally via nightly email).
                               
On the scalabity side of things, SIM supports incremental updates on
live systems. SIM had been used by customers with 800 'concurrent' users
over the web; by customers with databases of >6gb and >3,000,00 records;
to run in-house test collections of around 50gb.  

Michael Fuller
____________________________________________________________________________
Multimedia Databases Systems,                  Phone:      +61 3 9925 4148
RMIT University                                Fax:        +61 3 9925 4098
Level 3, 110 Victoria St,                          msf at mds.rmit.edu.au
Carlton 3053, Australia.                    http://www.mds.rmit.edu.au/~msf/

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