Download Competitive Advantages of SQL Anywhere

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PRODUCT DATASHEET
Competitive Advantages of SQL Anywhere
MICRODEC PUTS SQL
ANYWHERE THROUGH
ITS PACES
SQL Anywhere’s Adaptive Server
Anywhere was selected to power a
new multi-user application
developed by IT recruitment
solutions provider Microdec Plc.
Profile 2000 manages the entire
recruitment process from the
iAnywhere's SQL Anywhere is an award-winning data management and synchronization solution with over 15
years of research and development behind it. Over 20,000 developers, 12,000 customers and 1,000 application
partners have deployed more than 9 million seats of SQL Anywhere worldwide, making it one of the most trusted
databases for frontline environments.
Unlike other database technologies that were built for large enterprises, SQL Anywhere was engineered from the
beginning for frontline environments where no IT personnel may be available to maintain it. Yet its high performance
out of the box as well as its enterprise caliber features and rich administration tools ensures that it can scale to meet
the needs of large enterprises.
Companies like Intuit, Veritas, Siebel, FedEx, and Pepsi Bottling Group use SQL Anywhere to deliver data center
performance for large enterprises while successfully operating in the zero-administration environments found in
small businesses, remote offices, and with remote workers.
initial registration of a client to
hiring an applicant.
Demonstrated highperformance running more
than 1,300 active, connected
users on a single database
with 30 million records
Surpassed benchmark
requirements on an 18 GB SQL
Anywhere database with
3,900 concurrent connections
Performed more than 400%
faster than customer
benchmark requirements
overall, with some search
results over 4,700% faster
Successfully met extreme
usage scenarios, compressing
a typical month’s worth of
particular database insertions
into a two hour period
SQL ANYWHERE KEY FEATURES
Small Footprint, Enterprise Caliber
An efficient enterprise database server that is able to operate on resource-constrained platforms
• Requires as little as 16 MB of RAM on desktop and server platforms
• Uses significantly less disk space than other leading databases
• Supports more hardware platforms than Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft (see table on page 2)
• Provides rich database functionality
High Performance Out-of-the-Box
Achieves impressive performance on inexpensive desktop and server platforms right out-of-the-box
• Server can easily scale to hundreds of active users and many gigabytes of data
• Self-tuning query optimizer automatically improves performance as the database server is used
• Begins working automatically out of the box; no configuration required
• Automatically grows when it can use more memory using dynamic cache size adjustment and releases
additional memory when no longer needed
Ease of use
Low maintenance, highly reliable, and easy to use database that can effectively operate without human monitoring
or administration
• Self-administering and self-tuning features, requiring minimal DBA involvement
• Installation in less than 10 minutes
• Easy-to-use graphical administration tools
• Automatic start/stop of database server
• Transferable database files across platforms/OS's via simple file copy
• Easy to embed into an application, hiding it from users
Responsive to Our Customers
Award winning technical support and newsgroups monitored by engineering team
• Past winner of the InfoWorld award for best technical support, with SQL Anywhere newsgroups singled out for
particular mention
• Newsgroups monitored by iAnywhere Tech Support, Engineering and Product Management
www.iAnywhere.com
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TESTIMONIALS
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ENTERPRISE CALIBER FEATURES IN LEADING DATABASES
"SQL Anywhere uniquely provides
superior power and reliability in
a small footprint, embeddable
database … Our small business
Product Feature
SQL
Anywhere 9
Oracle 10g
Standard
Edition
IBM DB2
Microsoft SQL
UDB
Server 2005
Express8.2 Standard Edition
My SQL 5.0
Pro Certified
Server
Advanced SQL including OLAP functions
Full transaction processing
1
Built-in referential integrity with cascading
updates/deletes & data integrity
1
Row-level locking
1
customers often do not have a
database administrator on staff
so they need a solution that
works out of the box."
SQL triggers & stored procedures
— Ann Diederich,
Director for QuickBooks
Customer Manager at Intuit
"It quickly became clear to us
that SQL Anywhere fit the bill
perfectly and at a very cost
Java triggers & stored procedures
External stored procedures
2
Job scheduling and event monitors
3
XML support
3
Built-in Web Services server
Performance tuning features and tools
effective price. Tests
Auto back-up and recovery features
demonstrated the superior
Support for 64-bit operating systems
speed of SQL Anywhere
SMP - supports more than 4 processors
compared to the competition,
and its minimum storage
requirements were a bonus. A
decision was quickly made in
favor of iAnywhere. Installation
Database files can be moved between
Windows, Linux, UNIX, MAC OSX, and
Pocket PC devices
of code. Since our interfaces
4
Supports Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac &
Netware O.S. families
was completed without the
need to modify even a single line
1
1
2
3
4
Depends on Oracle InnoDB or Sleepycat Software
External UDF's are available
Planned for MySQL 5.1 (currently in alpha)
This is only possible if certain data types are not used in the database
support standard SQL, we were
able to access data without a
SQL
Anywhere 9
Oracle 10g
Standard
Edition
125
MB
150
MB
456
MB
890.9 MB 1050.0 MB
35.9
MB
Minimum required memory
16
MB RAM
256
MB RAM
128
MB RAM
512
MB RAM
64
MB RAM
Recommended memory
32
MB RAM
512
MB RAM
256
MB RAM
1,024
MB RAM
200
MB RAM
Number of Processors
No limit
4
2
4
No limit
Windows
Linux
UNIX
Pocket PC
Mac &
Netware
O.S. families
Windows
Linux
UNIX
Windows
Linux
Windows
Windows
Linux
UNIX
Mac &
Netware O.S.
families
problem and could program
everything ourselves. If problems
did occur, we knew that we
could turn to iAnywhere at any
Product Feature
Download Size (Windows Platform)
time for support."
— Magnus Lindström,
TEC Team programmer at ABB
Supported Platforms
www.iAnywhere.com
IBM DB2
Microsoft SQL
My SQL 5.0
UDB
Server 2005
Pro Certified
Express8.2 Standard Edition
Server
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SQL ANYWHERE VERSUS MICROSOFT SQL SERVER 2005
TESTIMONIAL
Attribute
Benefit of SQL Anywhere
SQL Anywhere's
technology is
incredibly resource
efficient
A small footprint substantially • Runs with as little as
reduces the total cost of
16 MB of RAM
deployment by saving money
spent on computer resources.
SQL Anywhere's
performance is
only limited by
the hardware it
runs on
Scalability and performance
• No limitations - bound only • Uses artificial limitations
are two key aspects when
by the operating system file • Workgroups Edition: can only
evaluating database products.
support 3 GB of RAM and 2
and memory limits
If the user's critical repository • Supports multiple CPUs, and
CPUs
outgrows what the database
• Express Edition can only
uses dynamic cache sizing,
can support, the database
support 1 GB of RAM, 1 CPU,
and Address Windowing
becomes ineffective. If the
and a 4 GB database. If merge
Extensions (AWE) on
solution is to upgrade to
replication is being used for
Windows 2000, XP, and
another product that falls
synchronization, old versions of
Windows Server 2003
outside of the customer's
data will also be stored in the
• Does not need to store old
price range, the initial
database.This makes it possible
versions of data in a
database decision may prove
to reach the 4 GB limit without
synchronization
to be in the worst interest of
actually having 4 GB of current
environment
the end-user.
data stored in the database.
SQL Anywhere is a
fully-contained
database product
Support libraries and “helper
applications” create
difficulties when installing
and deploying a solution.
Eliminating these simplifies
the solution administration.
SQL Anywhere
supports multiple
connectivity
interfaces
A flexible solution allows
• Works with both version 1.x
multiple ways to interact with
and 2.x of the .NET
a database and prevents an
Framework
organization from being
• Does not mandate
locked-in to a particular
installation of the .NET
technology. Internal
framework
development standards,
• Other interfaces can be
preferences, and deployment
used (JDBC, ODBC, OLEDB,
platforms can change without
ESQL, Perl, PhP, OpenClient)
being limited by what the
database supports.
• Only works with version 2 of the
.NET framework
• Version 2 must be installed in
order to use SQL Server
Workgroup
• Deployment of SQL Server
Workgroup is limited to
platforms where version 2 of
the .NET Framework is
supported.
SQL Anywhere's
replication
technology
guarantees
transactional
integrity
Accurate and timely
information is essential for
success in today competitive
environment. Replication
technology ensures users
have access to the most up to
date, accurate information
possible.
• Merge replication supports bidirectional replication, but
Merge replication is not based
on transactional replication and
does not guarantee
transactional consistency or
integrity
SQL Anywhere
“We rejected Microsoft and
Oracle because they were high
maintenance and costly. Our
clients wanted small
applications, specific to their
needs, which they could install
quickly and use easily. Only SQL
Anywhere met all these
requirements.”
— Halvor Aase,
R&D Manager, VingCard
http://www.ianywhere.com/
success_stories/vingcard.html
“We looked at Microsoft SQL
Server, Access, Oracle, PointBase
and SQL Anywhere. Ultimately,
we concluded SQL Anywhere
made the most sense for us.
Mettler Toledo was already using
SQL Anywhere in its retail scales
SQL Server 2005 Workgroup
and Express Edition
• Express Edition: Requires a
minimum of 192 MB of RAM
(512 MB recommended)
• Workgroup Edition: Requires a
minimum of 512 MB of RAM (1
GB recommended)
• Requires Microsoft .NET
Framework 2.0 which limits it to
platforms that support .NET 2.0
where it proved to be very fast,
robust and stable. So, many of
our key database requirements
had already been tested in
demanding realworld situations.
SQL Anywhere's minimal
maintenance requirements,
• SQL Anywhere does not
require any additional
application servers or
staging databases for
synchronization
MobiLink synchronization
functionality and Unicode
support were also major factors
in our decision to choose it for
OverDrive. And, of course, the
cost was important because it
didn't force us to drive up the
price of the OverDrive solution
as a whole.”
— Chris Jones,
Product Specialist for
Vehicle Scale Electronics and
Software, Mettler Toledo
http://www.ianywhere.com/s
uccess_stories/mettler.html
www.iAnywhere.com
• Bi-directional replication
technologies provide
conflict resolution and
guaranteed communication
integrity in the event that
there are errors in the
system
• Microsoft's IIS is required for
synchronization with SQL Server
Workgroup. Reporting services
also require ASP .NET 2.0
• Requires Internet Explorer 6
with Service Pack 1, and version
2.0 of the .NET Framework
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SQL ANYWHERE AND ORACLE 10G
Attribute
TESTIMONIAL
Benefit of SQL Anywhere
SQL Anywhere
Express Edition
“We rejected Microsoft and
Oracle because they were high
maintenance and costly. Our
clients wanted small
applications, specific to their
SQL Anywhere's
technology is
incredibly resource
efficient
A small footprint substantially • Runs with as little as
reduces the total cost of
16 MB of RAM
deployment by saving money • Download size is 125 MB and
spent on computer resources.
full install requires 230 MB
• Deployment of the database
server can be less than
10 MB
• Information is usually stored
in a single database file
(very large databases can
use more)
• A new empty database is
only 1.5 MB and grows
automatically, thus saving
disk space as there is no
need to pre-allocate
memory
SQL Anywhere has
excellent out-ofthe-box
performance
Solutions requiring certain
• Provides intelligent tuning and • Must be tuned and tweaked
expertise upon deployment
so that it can run the fastest
performance capabilities that
add cost to the solution for
depending on the operating
ensure the database will run as
these extra resources. This is
environment
fast as possible out-of-the-box,
especially important for small• Typically, a trained database
regardless of the operating
to-medium businesses, where
administrator will spend time
environment, thus decreasing
technical expertise may be
and effort to determine what
administrative costs
limited.
configuration gives the best
• No need for additional setup
performance
or tuning instructions
SQL Anywhere's
performance is
only limited by
the hardware it
runs on
Scalability and performance
• No limitations - bound only • Express Edition: Only executes
are two key aspects when
on one processor even if it is
by the operating system file
evaluating database products.
installed on a machine with
and memory limits
If the user's critical repository • Supports multiple CPUs, and
multiple CPUs
outgrows what the database
• Express Edition: Only uses up
uses dynamic cache sizing,
can support, the database
to 1 GB RAM even if it is
and Address Windowing
becomes ineffective and
installed on machines with
Extensions (AWE) on
requires a costly upgrade.
more memory
Windows 2000, XP, and
• Express Edition: Supports up
Windows Server 2003
to 4 GB of user data
• Does not need to store old
versions of data in a
synchronization environment
SQL Anywhere's
replication
technology
guarantees
transactional
integrity
Accurate and timely
• Bi-directional replication
information is essential for
technologies provide
success in today’s competitive
conflict resolution and
environment. Replication
guaranteed communication
technology ensures users
integrity in the event that
have access to the most up to
there are errors in the
date, accurate information
system.
possible.
needs, which they could install
quickly and use easily. Only SQL
Anywhere met all these
requirements.”
— Halvor Aase,
R&D Manager, VingCard
http://www.ianywhere.com/
success_stories/vingcard.html
“For this project, we compared
the performance of several
vendors including Sybase, Oracle
and IBM. According to our
Oracle 10g and 10g
evaluation, SQL Anywhere was
superior in various aspects such
as data security and
synchronization. SQL Anywhere's
• Oracle 10g Express Edition:
Requires a minimum of 256
MB of RAM (512 MB
recommended). Download
size is 150 MB and full install
requires 1.2 GB for Windows
and 1.5 GB for Linux.
• Oracle 10g: Requires a
minimum of 256 MB of RAM
(512 MB recommended) and
4.5 GB of available disk space.
• The Oracle XE default
database is 901 MB and
contains 9 files
• When creating Oracle XE databases, disk space must be preallocated for each tablespace
strong global market share also
contributed to our decision.”
— Seok-Do Jin,
General Manager of Hyundai
System Integration Company
http://www.ianywhere.com/
success_stories/hyundai.html
www.iAnywhere.com
• Failed synchronization can
result in data being orphaned
in the remote database, forcing
administrators to manually
extract the data from the
remote database and add it to
the consolidated database
• Oracle Lite does not provide
comprehensive conflict
detection and resolution
capabilities. Any conflicts that
arise during synchronization
are placed in an error queue
and a DBA must manually
resolve each one.
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SQL ANYWHERE AND MYSQL
TESTIMONIAL
“We looked at other products like
Oracle, Access and MySQL, and
concluded that SQL Anywhere
Attribute
Benefit of SQL Anywhere
SQL Anywhere
MySQL
SQL Anywhere has
small footprint
with enterprise
features
Enterprise features allow for
more complex business logic
to be built in to an
application.
• Support for stored
procedures, triggers, prepare
statements and full cursor
support
• Rudimentary support for Java
triggers and stored
procedures, or external stored
procedures
• Missing adequate built-in
protection from crashes and
hardware failures, since
default database tables have
no transaction support
SQL Anywhere has
excellent out-ofthe-box
performance
Solutions requiring certain
• A significant amount of
• Provides intelligent tuning
expertise upon deployment
tuning is required to achieve
and performance
add cost to the solution for
peak performance with the
capabilities that ensure the
these extra resources. This is
server
database will run as fast as
especially important for small• Paid support or consulting
possible right out-of-theto-medium businesses, where
may be required in cases
box regardless of the
technical expertise may be
where high performance is a
operating environment
limited.
requirement
• No need for additional setup
or tuning instructions
SQL Anywhere
requires minimal
maintenance
Businesses often observe
• Uses dynamic cache sizing,
operational cost savings when
automatically adjusting the
expenditures for database
memory cache to reflect the
administration are not
database activity
required. The ability to
• Provides a self-tuning
maintain performance while
optimizer that learns based
being resource efficient is very
on previous queries issued
important to reduce to the
• Supports auto-start and
overall cost of a system in
auto-stop of the database
light of an
server
employee's/customer's time
and balancing this with
hardware costs.
• Uses a large number of
my.cnf settings related to
memory and file locations
that are not easily changed
after deployment making
optimization postdeployment difficult
• Optimizer keeps statistics on
table data, but is not updated
automatically. ANALYZE TABLE
must be done periodically
programmatically in order to
update statistics.
• Needs to be started prior to application connections and won’t
auto stop when there are no
connections, wasting resources
SQL Anywhere is
easy to backup and
recover
Online backup functionality is • SQL Anywhere provides
required when database
online backup, which does
availability is mission critical.
not lock tables and can be
Lost time due to operational
done with a single simple
tasks may reduce
command
performance of a system or
• Backup utilities and
could lead to lost business.
statements come with the
base product
• Backing up a database is
storage engine dependant
and must be done table by
table making it difficult to
maintain referential integrity
during backups
• InnoDB provides a “Hot
Backup” utility that is
commercially licensed for an
extra fee
SQL Anywhere's
replication
technology
guarantees
transactional
integrity
Accurate and timely
information is essential for
success in today competitive
environment. Replication
technology ensures users
have access to the most up to
date, accurate information
possible.
• Supports one-way masterslave replication and slave
database must be read-only
• Lacks conflict resolution and
guaranteed communication
logic
would make Optimum Control
the quickest, most powerful and
easy to use restaurant
management solution in the
business. I'd absolutely
recommend it to anybody who
needs a database as part of their
solution.”
—Jeff Hands, Owner, TracRite
http://www.ianywhere.com/
success_stories/tracrite.html
www.iAnywhere.com
• Bi-directional replication
technologies provide
conflict resolution and
guaranteed communication
integrity in the event that
there are errors in the
system
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SQL ANYWHERE AND IBM DB2 UDB
TESTIMONIAL
Attribute
Benefit of SQL Anywhere
SQL Anywhere
SQL Anywhere has
small memory and
disk requirements
SQL Anywhere has small
memory and disk
requirements.
• Recommends over 64 MB of
• Runs with as little as
RAM for Personal Edition
16 MB of RAM
without use of graphical tools
• Deployment of the database
server can be less than 10 MB. • Personal Edition with
administration tools requires
128 MB minimum
SQL Anywhere
maintains resource
efficiency upon
deployment
After deployment, the system
efficiency can degrade due to
disk fragmentation,
unnecessary file growth, and
perhaps even applications
running and consuming
resources unnecessarily.
Minimizing these situations
will improve overall
performance of a solution.
• Provides optional auto-start
and auto-stop of database
servers based on use
• Key memory resources and
CPU cycles are freed at
shutdown
• Provides dynamic cache
sizing and allocates memory
resources based on usage
• Provides special
management of the
checkpoint log to free-up
disk space upon shutdown
• Can automate defragmentation of database
objects like indexes and
tables
• Must run as a service,
consuming several memory
and CPU cycles regardless of
whether an application is
using the database service
or not
• No dynamic cache sizing
• Allocates database manager
memory when an instance is
started and releases it when
it is stopped
• Disk space taken by the
database cannot
automatically be freed
without the use of DBA
permissions and knowledge.
SQL Anywhere is
designed to
operate when a
DBA is not present
The ability to maintain
performance while being
resource efficient is very
important to reduce to the
overall cost of a system in
light of an employee's
customer's time and
balancing this with hardware
costs.
• Designed to operate with
minimal administration at
the deployed site
• Includes a self-tuning query
optimizer
• Provides automatic recovery
• Does not require DBA
permission to backup and
recover the database
• Designed to operate on a
machine that may serve
other tasks
• Requires numerous
administrative tasks. For
instance, it is necessary to
constantly monitor the usage
of the database file, and to
grow when it “fills up”.
• Self-tuning feature needs to
be setup with parameters
• Requires the knowledge and
permissions of a DBA for
backup and recovery
SQL Anywhere is
easy-to-deploy
When looking at a mass
deployment solution,
deployment costs are
extremely important.
Reviewing how timeconsuming and involved the
deployment is will directly
affect deployment costs.
Deploying to 1000s of sites,
will magnify the incremental
time costs by 1000s.
• Does not require a separate
server for administration
• A single database file
contains users, passwords,
schema, data, and logic.
Database file can be moved
with a simple file copy.
• Can operate under normal
user accounts on Windows
• Can isolate different
versions of a database, so
that multiple versions can
co-exist
• Installs a separate DB2
Administration Server
database file
• Must be re-built upon
database deployment
• Satellite Edition has problems
with multiple installations
“We looked at other products like
Oracle, Access and MySQL, and
concluded that SQL Anywhere
would make Optimum Control
the quickest, most powerful and
easy to use restaurant
management solution in the
DB2 UDB Version 8.2 Express C/
Personal/Satellite/Enterprise
business. I'd absolutely
recommend it to anybody who
needs a database as part of their
solution.”
— Jeff Hands, Owner, TracRite
http://www.ianywhere.com/
success_stories/tracrite.html
www.iAnywhere.com
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“For this project, we compared
the performance of several
vendors including Sybase, Oracle
and IBM. According to our
evaluation, SQL Anywhere was
Additional information about SQL Anywhere can be found online. Some specific resources to use include:
• Website: http://www.ianywhere.com/products/sql_anywhere.html
• Newsgroups: http://www.ianywhere.com/support/newsgroups.html#sql_anywhere
• Product Manual: http://www.ianywhere.com/developer/product_manuals/sqlanywhere/index.html
Feature comparisons for other database may be available upon request. Please speak to your iAnywhere representative.
superior in various aspects such
as data security and
synchronization. SQL Anywhere's
strong global market share also
contributed to our decision.”
— Seok-Do Jin,
General Manager of Hyundai
System Integration Company
http://www.ianywhere.com/
success_stories/hyundai.htm
iANYWHERE SOLUTIONS, INC.
WORLDWIDE HEADQUARTERS
ONE SYBASE DRIVE
DUBLIN, CA 94568-7902
U.S.A.
[email protected]
NORTH AMERICA
T 1-800-801-2069
1-519-883-6898
EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA
+44 1628 597 100
ASIA PACIFIC
+852 2506 8700
JAPAN
+81 3 5210 6380
www.iAnywhere.com
iANYWHERE SOLUTIONS IS A SUBSIDIARY OF SYBASE, INC. COPYRIGHT © 2006 IANYWHERE SOLUTIONS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
iANYWHERE, SYBASE, AND THE SYBASE LOGO ARE TRADEMARKS OF SYBASE, INC. OR ITS SUBSIDIARIES. ALL OTHER TRADEMARKS ARE
PROPERTIES OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. ® INDICATES REGISTRATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.