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Wildfire's
SQL Database
The Front-End
Our front-end
GUI - the part of the system that you
typically will be using - is written in
Delphi. Delphi is the leading
database-specific development language in
the world.
There are other
languages that sell more units, like
Visual Basic, but they are generic
languages which can be used for many
things. For example, Visual Basic
is often used to write computer games
which have nothing to do with database
applications. As a consequence,
Visual Basic is often the choice of
independent programmers and small
software companies who only need to learn
one language to do many different things.
This drives up the sales of Visual Basic,
but it doesn't make it the best language
for a database application such as
Wildfire Enterprise.
Delphi is
published by Inprise Corporation [inprise.com],
a company which specializes in enterprise-level
database languages and tools.
Inprise is the world leader in providing
enterprise-level connectivity and cross
platform support tools. Unlike
Microsoft, which sells a little of
everything, Inprise focuses squarely on
the needs of companies which require
highly scalable [i.e. the ability to grow
from small installations to large ones]
database applications. Inprise's
enterprise tools dominate the world
market with an 80% marketshare; they are
used - and even resold - by companies
like Sun Microsystems, IBM, Oracle, HP
and many others.
Delphi
has always had the advantage, amongst
others, of being a compiled, native code
language. In lay terms, this means
that Delphi is 20-30 times faster than
interpreted code languages like FoxPro,
and many times faster than mixed code
languages like Visual Basic. It
also supports many RDBMS's like
InterBase, Oracle, Sybase, etc. with
native database drivers.
The Back-End
We use
InterBase for the SQL Relational DataBase
Management System [RDBMS], which is
published by InterBase Corporation [interbase.com].
InterBase is
the world leader in providing databases
for embedded database applications like
Wildfire Enterprise. InterBase is
unique in it's combination of
performance, ease of installation and
maintenance, reliability and cross-platform
support [i.e. Windows, NetWare, Unix,
Linux, VMS, etc]. It is clearly the
best database for companies which start
small, and don't want to spend lots of
money on database specialists [e.g. MLM
companies]. Wildfire is an
authorized development partner of
InterBase Corp so you always know that
Wildfire will be able to support you.
InterBase is
used by many large companies around the
world, including Motorola, the Pacific
Stock Exchange, Nokia, The US Army, etc.
While other databases may sell more, that
doesn't make them better. For
example, no one would argue that Fords
are better cars than Mercedes even though
Ford sells 100 times as many cars as
Mercedes.
InterBase
pioneered the use of embedded
instructions which created the world of
client-server applications. It
offers many unique attributes which other
databases just dream of. For
example, Microsoft SQL Server cannot be
optimized to run both database
transactions - entering a new distributor
- and database analysis - running a
genealogy report - simultaneously.
InterBase is optimized for both when you
get it, and it actually keeps track of
how you are using the database to keep
itself "tuned" at all times.
Other databases either cannot be tuned
for both - like Microsoft SQL Server - or
have to be tuned manually by an expensive
database administer [DBA] - like Oracle
or Sybase. For example, Sybase has
over 200 variables which must be tuned
for optimum performance; InterBase
doesn't have any because the database
does it for you.
According
to KeyLabs of Provo, Utah [the country's
largest independent testing company for
this kind of product], InterBase is 6.5
times faster than SQL Server on average.
Tests were done using WinNT 4.0 on
databases of up to 600,000 records, and
up to 100 users.
Here
is a small sample of some of the
companies who use InterBase:
- Motorola
- Nokia
- City of
New York
- Coors
Distributing Company
- National
Semiconductor
- Philadelphia
Stock Exchange
- State
of California, Department of
Justice
- U.S.
Federal Highway Administration
- U.S.
Army
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