Britton Lee, Inc.
| Error creating thumbnail: File missing (Also need BL logo) | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Database management systems |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Headquarters | Los Gatos, California, United States |
Number of employees | ≈200 |
Britton Lee Inc. was a pioneering relational database company. Renamed ShareBase, it was acquired by Teradata in June, 1990.[1]
History
[edit | edit source]Britton Lee was founded in 1979 by David L. Britton, Geoffrey M. Lee, and a group of hardware engineers along with Robert Epstein, Michael Ubell and Paula Hawthorn from the research team that created Ingres.[2] The company sold database machines, specialized computers designed for database software. As of 1985[update] it had an installed base of about 300, primarily for midrange systems such as DEC VAX.[3]
Epstein later left Britton Lee to help found Sybase. Britton and Lee left the company in 1987.[4] On May 15, 1989, the company formally changed its name to ShareBase Corporation.[5]
After layoffs and financial losses in 1989, ShareBase was acquired by Teradata in June, 1990.[1] Teradata was, like Britton-Lee, an early database machine vendor.[3]
Products
[edit | edit source]As of Fall, 1989:[6]
- ShareBase II (tm): An RDBMS designed for a client/server environment.
- ShareBase(tm) I: Predecessor to ShareBase II
- ShareBase SQL Database Server, various models:[7]
- Server/8000(tm): "Upper-mid-range database server" that supported ShareBase II. Optimized database operations on a RISC/ECL database processor. Used a "distributed function multiprocessor architecture" and included up to 256 MB of "shared high-speed data memory." Supported a variety of clients, including IBM PC DOS, Apple Macintosh, Sun, AT&T 3B series computers systems, Pyramid, DEC VAX, HP 3000 and HP 9000, and IBM VM/CMS and MVS.
- Server/300 (tm), supported ShareBase I and worked with a variety of clients, including PC/DOS, UNIX workstations, AT&T System V, Sun, and DEC VAX with BSD/UNIX, VAX/VMS, or ULTRIX. It also supported up to 50 databases, 32,000 tables per database, 2 billion rows per table, 4 MB of memory, and 200 concurrent users.[7]
- Server/700 (tm), supported ShareBase I,[7] same basic features as the Server/300, but with 6 MB of memory and "greater performance for more demanding environments".[7]
- ShareCom: Communications facilities between database clients and the ShareBase servers.
The Server/300 came in three models:[7]
- Model 25: 600 MB of disk storage and one tape drive
- Model 35: 1200 MB of disk storage and two tape drives
- Model 60: 3320 MB of disk storage and two tape drives
Affiliation with Omnibase/SmartStar
[edit | edit source]An announcement was made in 1984, that Britton-Lee's database machine IDM (Intelligent Database Machine) was being sold together with Signal Technology Inc.'s Omnibase and SmartStar relational database software.[8]
This hardware/software combination of Omnibase/Smartstar/Britton Lee Data Base Machine(s),[9][10][11] was used by NASA,[12] USMC[13] and by financial services for analysis.[citation needed]
SmartStar is Signal Technology Inc (STI)'s application development environment for the VAX, and it supports[14] several databases using native connections:
- RMS,[15] Rdb/VMS, Oracle, Sybase, Ingres, Teradata/ShareBase.
Although before SQL became standard STI's focus was on IQL (Interactive Query Language), now the query language it supports is SQL.
Components include[16]
- SmartBuilder
- SmartDesign
- SmartStation
- SmartGL
- SmartCall and RSQL (for use from 3GL languages)
- SmartQuery
- SmartMove (mass load/unload)
- SmartReport
- SmartPainter
- ISQL (Interactive SQL)
Signal Technology Inc
[edit | edit source]As the above combination moved along, STI and Britton-Lee saw a validation in the form of a review, which confirmed: "there exists no database management system that matches the performance of the IDM with OMNIBASE."[17][18]
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ a b c d e Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).