Pyrrho DBMS Enterprise Edition

Pyrrho is a newly-designed compact and efficient relational database management system for the .NET framework. It supports features found in SQL2003 including advanced OLAP functions. The server has a 540KB footprint, so will run successfully on .NET enabled PDAs and mobile phones. Despite its small size it is scalable and efficient. It has been tested on high-volume scenarios, where it significantly outperforms existing commercial products.

The latest version will always be available on www.pyrrhodb.com. All versions except Personal versions require a license file (key.dat). All versions are binary compatible and platform independent.

Pyrrho can also scale up to large enterprise uses, although for large databases it needs a lot of main memory (RAM). For best results the computer main memory should be at least twice the size of the database. It is most suited to data that includes a regular stream of new information that is to be kept indefinitely, for example, customer data, orders or accounting transactions. It has an enhanced authorisation model and built-in auditing facilities.

Pyrrho supports the usual SQL database language, compatible with the SQL2003 standard. Pyrrho supports relational integrity constraints. Entity, domain and referential integrity constraints are always enforced. However, in Pyrrho the default is that all data types are variable-length.

Pyrrho uses a full multi-user client-server architecture. The server uses a robust TCP-based protocol for communication with clients. The usual .NET data client interfaces, such as DataReader, are supported by the Pyrrho connector.

Pyrrho enforces a full transaction model, with concurrent transactions that are atomic, consistent, isolated and durable are automatically enforced. Optimistic transaction handling is used, avoiding locking. Database applications need to restart any transactions that fail, but really this is necessary with any kind of transaction management system.

Pyrrho enforces authority, user and timestamp recording for all changes to the database. The user and timestamp for all changes to the database are recorded together with the authority for the change. Authority is a novelty in Pyrrho, which identifies the reason for any change to the database ? if the operation is routine the authority will simply identify a business process. No data is ever lost. Deleted or modified data can always be recovered if required. This information is available to applications through the use of system tables, and it is also possible to examine a database as it was at any time in the past. Pyrrho takes its name from the ancient Greek philosopher who founded the school of Scepticism: Sceptics support investigation and are suspicious of dogmatic, uncheckable utterance.

The implementation of Pyrrho is in the C# language, so works on the .NET Framework on Windows and Linux. Pyrrho?s data is located normally in a single file per database. Pyrrho uses variable-length records and truncates short or null values, to reduce the size of disk files. Files are split into 4GB segments if necessary. Data files are portable between locales and machine platforms, and in particular are independent of machine or platform dependencies such as the number of octets used for integers, doubles etc.

Pyrrho supports threading and clusters. The database server uses threading internally, and normally runs on a desktop computer. The architecture can be scaled to high-performance computer clusters. The technology underlying the Pyrrho database engine is subject to a patent application: British Patent Application No. 0423146.0 University of Paisley: ?Improvements in and Relating to Database Technology?.
Platforms supported:
Unix / Linux, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP x64, Windows Server 2003 x64, .NET 2.0 Windows

Languages supported:
SQL2003