Polyhedra (software)

Polyhedra DBMS

Developer(s)	ENEA AB
Initial release	1993
Stable release	7.1 / 28 September 2007
Written in	C++, plus Java for the JDBC driver
Operating system	Cross-platform (List)
Available in	C/C++, Java
Type	in-memory RDBMS
License	Proprietary
Website	http://www.polyhedra.com/

Polyhedra is a family of relational database management systems offered by ENEA AB, a Swedish company. The original version of Polyhedra (now referred to as Polyhedra IMDB) was an in-memory database management system which could be used in high availability configurations; in 2006 Polyhedra FlashLite was introduced to allow databases to be stored in Flash memory All versions are fully client-server to ensure the data is protected form misbehaving application software, and use the same SQL, ODBC and type-4 JDBC interfaces. Polyhedra is targeted primarily for embedded use by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and big-name customers include Ericsson, ABB, Emerson, Lockheed Martin, United Utilities and Siemens AG.

Polyhedra Company History

Polyhedra development was started in 1991 by Perihelion Technology Ltd, a subsidiary of Perihelion Software Ltd (PSL); initially, the project had a working title the 'Perihelion Application Toolkit', but was soon renamed Polyhedra (using a left-over trademark from another PSL project). There was a management buyout of PTL in 1994, and the Company name changed to Polyhedra plc to match the name of the product. Polyhedra plc was in turn acquired by Enea AB in 2001. All development and support is still done in the English town of Shepton Mallet, where PSL was based.

Polyhedra Release History

• 1991 Development started.
• 1993 Polyhedra 1.0: first commercial release of an in-memory Relational DBMS (RDBMS).
• 1996 Polyhedra 2.0: added hot standby configurations for use in applications needing high availability.
• 1997 Polyhedra 3.0: new in-memory data storage engine, for improved space and time efficiency.
• 1999 Polyhedra 3.1: adds new data types, ODBC API.
• 2001 Polyhedra 4.0: JDBC support, additional index type, read-only replicas, multi-threading.
• 2002 Polyhedra 4.1: client-server comms overhauled for substantial performance improvements, especially for client apps using the ODBC API (now deemed the 'native' API for all platforms).
• 2003 Polyhedra 5.0: UNICODE, schema migration (SQL 'ALTER TABLE').
• 2004 Polyhedra 6.0: 64-bit support re-introduced, for Linux and Solaris. (It previously had been available on DEC Alpha under Digital UNIX until usage of that platform generally died out.) Polyhedra64 has subsequently been ported to Windows x64, AIX.
• 2006 Polyhedra FlashLite introduced, based on a fork of the Polyhedra IMDB code base.
• 2007 Polyhedra 7.0: Polyhedra IMDB and Polyhedra FlashLite code bases unified, for ease of support and greater commonality of features. Also, enhanced resource management and multi-threading.

Platforms

Polyhedra IMDB runs in 32-bit mode on Linux (first ported to this platform in 1995), Windows (since 1995), AIX (1994), and Solaris (1994); if the operating system is running in 64-bit mode, the 64-bit version of Polyhedra IMDB (also known as Polyhedra64) will also run on the platform, which gives greater memory addressability and thus greater capacity. Polyhedra32 will also run on various real-time operating systems including Wind River Systems VxWorks (since 1996), LynuxWorks LynxOS (2004), Green Hills INTEGRITY (2005), Microsoft Windows CE (2005) and of course the OSE operating system from ENEA AB (since 1999). In the past, Polyhedra was also available on the following operating systems, all now (sadly) defunct or not used in the target markets: Digital UNIX, IRIX, pSOS, REAL/IX, SCO UNIX, ULTRIX, and Vax VMS.

External links

• Company website
• Product website