‘XML support in RDBMS will definitely alter storage systems’

Daniel Ingitaraj K joined Microsoft in 1997 as a ‘tools evangelist’,

handling the product management function of development tools in the Indian

subcontinent. He moved to the position of MSDN manager, where his key function

was to build the developer community in India through various programs under the

MSDN umbrella. He currently handles the product and marketing management

functions for the software giant’s .NET enterprise servers and development

tools. In an exclusive interview to Dataquest, he speaks on the emerging trends

in the database market

Where is the database market headed in terms of technological

advancements, usage and adaptability?



The database segment offers huge opportunities for emerging markets,

specifically in the areas of embedded databases, handheld devices, data

warehousing and XML support. In fact, the growth of the handheld market is

making a substantial impact on the database industry. The increased adoption of

handheld computing devices is causing database management vendors to release ‘small

footprint versions’ of their databases to provide storage for those devices.

This trend, however, also requires a very robust application and synchronization

capability between the databases on the handheld devices on one hand and the

large enterprise databases on the other.

Another emerging trend is in the embedded database market space. IT

departments are increasingly deploying applications that are shipped with the

database. This provides much tighter integration and reduces the total cost of

ownership for the application. Datawarehousing is another enterprise trend that

is gaining popularity at the high end of the market. Database technology,

especially the relational, multidimensional and object relational data models,

are well established and well understood. While specialized technology will

continue to be introduced, new data types will be accommodated and more and more

business intelligence features will be incorporated into the database engine.

This is an established market in which most new functionality will be

evolutionary.

How mature is RDBMS as a technology and does it meet the needs of data

management for hand-held and mobile devices, as well as home appliances?



The embedded database that once lay at the fringes of the database market,

is increasingly becoming an important player in the industry. This rise in the

embedded database market can be attributed to the phenomenal rise of the

portable computing devices—cellular phones with Internet access, PDAs, laptops

and embedded systems. Users are storing an increasing amount of data that they

generate on these devices themselves creating a demand for devices that have

sophisticated data management capabilities.

What has been the impact of the usage trends and changes in the industry

on database management systems, particularly RDBMS and vice-versa?



XML support in RDBMS will definitely alter storage systems. XML content needs to
be stored in a manner that it can be searched and retrieved in XML format. This

seemingly simple requirement has had a profound impact on existing data storage

technologies. According to reports, the expenditure on XML storage solutions is

expected to grow from $75 million in 2000 to over $4.1 billion (US) in 2005.

Interestingly, XML-enabled RDBMS vendors had exhausted only 15% of that market

in 2000 and will consume over 65% of the total expenditure by 2005. The native

XML data store (NXD) vendors are also expected to realize around $1.6 billion in

revenue by 2005.

What are the new technologies and systems that key players in this space

are working on?



A majority of the players in this space including Microsoft are working

towards developing smaller footprint databases, clustering, partitioning and XML

support. Device proliferation or smaller footprint databases (because of their

offline capabilities) will be used in all devices to offer more robust

replication support for embedded databases. Similarly, clustering that allows

businesses to harness multiple servers to run a very large database is important

for redundancy reasons and also if the servers have to share work.

Partitioning is another big area and can provide tremendous benefits to a

wide variety of applications by improving manageability, performance and

availability. On the other hand, while file systems and relational and

object-oriented database management systems have met our needs in prior years

for data storage and retrieval, XML imposes new requirements on how that

information needs to be stored so that it can be retrieved in a structured,

hierarchical manner.

Where does RDBMS or a database management system fit into the overall

scheme of Microsoft’s operations?



Microsoft is extremely bullish about the upcoming opportunities in this

space. SQL Server 2000, one of the key Microsoft .NET offerings and the next

generation database of the .NET Enterprise Servers, have an important role to

play in this space.

It is the next generation database of the .NET Enterprise Servers and

therefore a very integral part of the Microsoft .NET platform. Our SQL Server

2000 is the complete database and analysis offering for rapidly delivering the

next generation of scalable e-commerce, line of business and data-warehousing

solutions. It drastically reduces the time required to bring these applications

to market while offering the scalability needed for the most demanding

environments. SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services provides enterprises with the

business intelligence they need to make smarter decisions. And over time, making

decisions using this kind of intelligence can have a dramatic effect on the

bottomline.

How do you evaluate the Indian market in this space?



The Indian market is as geared up as the rest to meet the challenges

emanating from these new emerging trends. SQL Server 2000 is the fastest growing

database system in India and with its performance benchmarks on TPCC, SAP— it

is expected to make deeper inroads into enterprise usage. We have seen a great

demand in India from the likes of HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Interconnected Stock

Exchange and Infosys. In the future, we expect SQL Server 2000 to become a

dominant database in the financial services and the telecom sector. It will be a

dominant player in the data warehousing and business intelligence category in

terms of technology leadership and usage. Also, as Web services usage is

increasingly becoming mainstream in India, we see SQL Server 2000 as a preferred

database for newer architectures based on Web services.

Shubhendu Parth in New Delhi