InterSystems Corporation has announced a major new release of its InterSystems CACHÉ high-performance object database. CACHÉ release 2010 targets the growing demand by CIOs for economical high availability and the call from Java developers for high-volume, high-performance processing combined with persistent storage for event processing systems.

“IT executives are looking for an economical solution that will provide high availability for critical systems throughout the enterprise,” said Robert Nagle, InterSystems Vice President of Software Development. “And, in organizations with high-volume, Java-based, complex event processing (CEP) environments, CIOs are seeking out database solutions that combine persistent storage with extremely high performance. With this new release, CACHÉ successfully addresses both of these scenarios.”

InterSystems specializes in advanced database, integration and business intelligence technologies for breakthrough applications. CACHÉ is a highly scalable object database for transactional systems, and it can run SQL queries faster than relational databases.

CACHÉ Database Mirroring—High Availability at Half the Cost

CIOs in large organizations are painfully aware of the substantial investments in infrastructure, deployment, configuration, software licensing, and planning required for traditional high availability solutions. With CACHÉ 2010, InterSystems introduces CACHÉ Database Mirroring—innovative, advanced technology that takes high-availability solutions to a new level. CACHÉ Database Mirroring provides a reliable, robust automated solution for both planned and unplanned downtime at a cost that will have a very positive impact on the IT bottom line. “Early users of our mirroring capabilities project cost savings of 30-50 percent, based on production configurations,” said Nagle. “The cost-effectiveness and high availability that CACHÉ Database Mirroring provides will prove especially attractive in certain industry sectors. Healthcare providers, for example, who are focused on the twin objectives of reducing costs while also improving care delivery, are likely to view this new capability as a major step forward in healthcare IT.”

CACHÉ Database Mirroring provides automatic failover between any two CACHÉ-based systems, without the need for specialized (and expensive) storage and networking hardware and software. In addition to providing high availability at a dramatically lower cost, key benefits include:

• Flexibility for Planned Downtimes—Configuration changes or operating system upgrades affecting one CACHÉ-based application, for example, can be executed with minimal impact on overall application availability or performance against Service Level Agreements.

• Minimized Risk—In contrast to traditional replication solutions with the inherent complexity of their configuration requirements, CACHÉ Database Mirroring utilizes a simple, easy-to-implement model. This approach removes complexity from the configuration equation. And, by using logical data replication, mirroring reduces risks such as out-of-order updates and carry-forward corruption that are possible in the physical replication technologies used by other systems.

• Business Continuity Support—Mirrored databases can be housed in separate data centers, so continuity of key business operations is ensured in the event of a disaster.

Early users of Database Mirroring are rapidly moving forward to implement the capability on a production basis. “Our tolerance of any system downtime has nearly reached the point where even planned downtime is unacceptable,” said Rob Hurst, Principal System Administrator at CareGroup Healthcare System, a Boston-based integrated delivery network. “InterSystems truly understands the challenges of availability on a 24x365 basis. After field testing that has been 100 percent successful,” he continued, “we plan to implement Database Mirroring in 1Q11…it’s a total high-availability solution that is definitely cost-effective when compared to traditional approaches.”

CACHÉ eXTreme for Java—Extremely High Performance Plus Data Persistence

CACHÉ eXTreme for Java provides a revolutionary solution to the dilemma that Java developers confront when building systems where processing speed is of critical importance, data changes very rapidly, and data persistence is an absolute requirement. Providing direct Java access to the CACHÉ multidimensional database engine delivers performance that has been measured in the field at three to seven times faster than other data-handling approaches. CACHÉ eXTreme for Java delivers performance equal to an in-memory database while also delivering the persistence of both historical and transactional data that is required for CEP and event-driven SOA.

CACHÉ eXTreme makes it possible for Java developers to choose the optimal development approach based on specific system requirements. Developers can access data efficiently as multidimensional data structures to obtain the highest possible application performance. With sparse storage techniques, sophisticated cache management, and high concurrency rates, CACHÉ-based applications can be scaled to many thousands of clients without sacrificing high performance.

Another alternative is eXTreme event persistence where developers store Java objects in the CACHÉ database. This approach automatically creates a Java binding and data can be accessed through Java using objects or SQL for maximum development flexibility.

The CACHÉ eXTreme breakthrough combination of high performance, persistent data storage, massive scalability, and flexibility in development approach requires only a minimal training investment. Typically, a Java developer with a year of experience can be productive in just a few days when using CACHÉ eXTreme.

“We’ve seen a tremendous amount of excitement about CACHÉ eXTreme for Java throughout our customer base, with particular interest coming from organizations in the financial services, logistics, scientific R&D and utility/power supply sectors,” said Nagle. “We expect that IT executives who must address requirements for data persistence in event processing systems while also providing extremely high performance will move rapidly to adopt this advanced technology.”

Pricing and Availability

CACHÉ 2010 is available now on Windows, Linux, Mac, UNIX and OpenVMS platforms. Pricing ranges from $220 to $1,380 per user, depending on configuration.