Relational database technology remains the mechanism of choice for data storage in information management systems. BlazeLIMS supports Oracle and SQL Server, the two industry standards for RDBMS, giving the customer the choice of the system most suitable to the situation. This choice allows for cost effective installations ranging from 5 or fewer concurrent users up to hundreds of concurrent users:
- Oracle
- Superior concurrency management.
- More suitable for larger systems with more concurrent users.
- More expensive.
- More difficult to maintain.
- SQL Server
- Less effective concurrency management – susceptible to more deadlocks.
- More suitable for systems with fewer concurrent users.
- Less expensive.
- Royalty free low-end database engine.
- Easier to maintain.
- More friendly tools.
Perhaps more important than choice of database is how the database is used. BlazeLIMS RDBMS has been implemented using the highest quality approach:
- Proper transaction bounding with brief transactions and minimum locking windows, using an optimistic locking model, provides superior concurrency management.
- Use of the most efficient API (native SQLNet for Oracle, ODBC for SQL Server).
- Server-only read/write transactions insures robust scaleable operation.
- Superior physical schema implementation reduces long term DBA maintenance/tuning costs.
- Proprietary automated query generation insures predictable response times in the face of common query optimizer weaknesses.