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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> RE: OT -- history of Sybase spawning MS SQL Server
Patrice,
That's a hell of a write up! I knew the background to the SQLServer product, but not in so much detail!
I also have a write up on the Ashton Tate/Microsoft/Sybase relationship, to give a little more info on the "early days":
Back then the PC database Market was dominated by Ashton Tate's dBase product. dBase IV had just been released and had been having a difficult time overcoming industry criticism that its memory management did not meet Ashton Tate's claims. They wanted to start to build on what they saw as their solid foundation in the PC market and start moving onto bigger systems. They moved to bring out a version of dBase IV on UNIX and in 1988, together with Microsoft, jointly announced a deal with Sybase to port SQLServer down to the intel platform using the new IBM multi-tasking operating system OS/2.
Sybase's interest was obviously to license more copies of SQLServer and penetrate a new, lower end market. Ashton Tate's goal was equally clear - to promote dBase as the database application for everyone. It's ease of use was designed to make it open to fairly inexperienced users while its programming language was to make an ideal tool for developers. By buying the Server Edition, developers would be able to connect to more serious data sources, like SQLServer, to store their data. (A vision remarkably similar to another PC database that was to come to market later).
Microsoft's interest in the deal was less clear, although everyone seemed to assume they were only out to sell copies of LAN Manager, their network software built on OS/2 - the operating systems they had just coded for IBM. After all - as the contemporary gossip went, Microsoft knew nothing about databases!
The deal gave Asthon Tate full marketing rights to the product, which was badged with the Ashton Tate logo. Microsoft's cut came from sales of LAN Manager and Sybase's came from commission of every copy, who retained all intellectual rights on the SQLServer software. Ashton Tate were licensed only to add to the product.
Ashton Tate had apparently, signed a clause in the deal, that committed them to deliver dBase IV Server Edition by a specific date. Failure would result in the company loosing any rights in the deal. This indeed occurred and full marketing rights switched to Microsoft almost immediately.
So that is was happened in a more detailed summary than was on Page 8. Microsoft did pretty well out of the deal don't you think?
Regards
Mark
-----Original Message-----
Patrice J
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 09:49
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
More info since this is s-u-c-h a fascinating topic. In case you're wondering, it's past the end of the work day here for me, so I'm not wasting time... ironically I'm staying late to study for a SQL Server 7 Administration exam!
Here goes, mind you this is from the lead developer for MS SQL Server, so keep that in mind.
Inside SQL Server 6.5, p. 5
"Ashton-Tate, Microsoft and Sybase would work together to debut SQL Server
on OS/2. (This was the first use of the name "SQL Server". Sybase later
renamed its DataServer product for UNIX and VMS "Sybase SQL Server", the
name by which it is known today.)"
Continuing with the quotes on the history: p.8 loosely summarized, MS and Sybase dropped Ashton-Tate because that company was focusing on their dBase IV Server Edition product, and SQL Server 1.0 was not much of a priority for them. At the time though Microsoft still saw SQL Server primarily as a way to push LAN Manager. So Sybase appears to have been the key developer for this project, the ones with the most stake in it.
p.9. in 1991 SQL Server 1.1. was released to work with Windows 3.0..
Here the shift begins.
p.10 - exact quote: "It was a great day in the SQL Server group at Microsoft
when in early 1991 Microsoft's agreement with Sybase was amended to give
Microsoft "read-only" access to the source code, for the purpose of customer
support." [...] "As a small group of developers at Microsoft became adept
with the SQL Server source code and internal workings, Microsoft began to do
"virtual" bug fixes. Although we were still not permitted to alter the
source code, we could identify line-by-line the specific modules that needed
to be changed to fix a bug. Obviously, when we handed the fix directly to
Sybase, high-priority bugs identified by Microsoft got resolved much
quicker."
Continuing, still p.10:
"After a few months of working in this way, the extra step was eliminated.
By mid-1991, Microsoft could finally fix bugs directly." They still had to
let Sybase review the fixes before applying them, because Sybase at that
time was still nominally the owner of the base code for the database engine.
p.11 on the purpose of SQL Server at that time: "No hard limit was established, but in general, SQL Server for OS/2 was used for workgroups of 50 users or less. For larger groups, customers would buy a version of Sybase SQL Server for higher performance UNIX-based or VMS-based systems."
Then IBM and Microsoft divorced, and OS/2 was left floundering. At the time Microsoft was planning to develop something similar called NT, but that would not be ready for another 2 years. During those two years, the Microsoft SQL Server group continued developing SQL Server for OS/2, at the same time as the rest of Microsoft was actively pushing Windows 3.0 instead of OS/2.
P. 12 Microsoft worked on SQL Server 4.2. for OS/2 version 2.0, the version anticipated from IBM. This was the first 32-bit version of OS/2. Microsoft decided to just port the UNIX version of SQL Server to OS/2, because that was already 32-bit. Then IBM delayed the release of OS/2 2.0 from 1991 to late 1992, and Microsoft doubted that IBM would manage to release it "at all". (quote from p.13).
p.13 SQL Server v.4.2 entered beta testing in the fall of 1991, announced in January 1992, and shipped in March 1992. "Version 4.2 truly had been a joint development between Microsoft and Sybase. The database engine was ported from the UNIX version 4.2 source code, with both Microsoft and Sybase engineers working on the port and fixing bugs." [...] "... for the first time it included a Windows GUI tool to make administration easier."
p.14 "In early 1992, however, we faced some uncertainty and external pressures. On one hand, our entire customer base was by definition using OS/2. Those customers made it clear that they wanted, indeed expected, a 32-bit version of SQL Server for OS/2 2.0 as soon as IBM shipped 2.0, and they intended to remain on OS/2 for the foreseeable future. But when OS/2 2.0 might be available was unclear. IBM claimed that OS/2 2.0 would ship by the fall of 1992. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft VP, made a well-known pledge to eat a floppy disk if IBM shipped the product in 1992. I was not one to doubt Steve." (I don't know if Steve ate a floppy disk or not.)
At the same time senior management at MS were putting pressure on them to release a SQL Server version for NT as soon as possible, to be ready in time for the NT beta release. So they stopped developing it for OS/2. They continued producing minor patches, but that was the end of it.
p. 16 At this time, Sybase was working on a new version of its product, to be named "System 10". Eventually the two diverged, because of course for the MS developers SQL Server for NT was the priority, and System 10 was the priority for Sybase developers.
"We decided to compromise and specialize. Microsoft would port SQL Server
version 4.2 for OS/2 to Windows NT, beginning immediately. Sybase would
bring Windows NT into its umbrella of "core" operating platforms on which
System 10 would be available. In addition, Microsoft would turn the OS/2
product back to Sybase so those customers who wanted to stay with OS/2 could
do so."
Anyway, that's the story from the Microsoft side... I haven't seen any books published from Sybase employees re. what happened, it would be interesting to compare.
So Sybase was left holding the bag for SQL Server on OS/2, and Microsoft walked away with Sybase's source code. Of course they didn't see the System 10 source code, but they had the code for the previous version. And the SQL Server training manuals for the exam keep talking about how you can upgrade from 4.5 to 6.5, then from 6.5 to 7, but you can't upgrade directly from 4.5 to 7. There must be some major differences between the two, but System 10 and SQL Server 7 are cousins.
p.19 says it all:
"By early December 1993, a large percentage of the SQL Server for the OS/2
customer base had already migrated to SQL Server for Windows NT. Our
surveys showed that most of those who had not yet upgraded to Windows NT
planned to do so, despite the fact that Sybase had publicly announced its
intention to develop System 10 for OS/2."
Anyway, sorry to be such a bore.
Regards,
Patrice Boivin
Systems Analyst (Oracle Certified DBA)
Systems Admin & Operations | Admin. et Exploit. des systèmes Technology Services | Services technologiques Informatics Branch | Direction de l'informatique Maritimes Region, DFO | Région des Maritimes, MPO
E-Mail: boivinp_at_mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca <mailto:boivinp_at_mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca>
Ph: (902) 426-4774
-----Original Message-----
From: Boivin, Patrice J [SMTP:BoivinP_at_mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 4:22 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: might be really old topic, but please take a
look
Leslie,
Sybase is what SQL Server is built from, I think. I don't know much about
Sybase, but I Know that SQL Server 7 only has one transaction log file (redo
log file), that you have to back up regularly and truncate otherwise your
database will freeze. In SQL server there is no such thing as an
"archived
log", you have to back up the transaction log's datafile to get your backup
of transactions. This is just one example. Does Sybase support multiple
log files? What about multiple archiving processes? That was a bit of a
bottleneck in Oracle7 for us, and I had created the max number of redo log
files. I can't imagine what it would be like with only one transaction log
file... I am looking forward to our upgrade to 8.1.6., I am curious to see
what multiple archiving processes can do.
Re. NT and UNIX, does Microsoft still sell NT? Here we could only by
Windows2000 licenses.
: )
NT is good for small to medium databases that are not too mission critical,
in my opinion, but from experience I much prefer UNIX.
I know you probably want numbers to compare, maybe you could ask DBAs how
long their NT and UNIX servers have been running without interruption, and
why they were brought down the last time...
Last I read on the 'net the new Windows versions will have new names. The
personal software (read Win9x/ME stream plus NT Workstation) will be called
WindowsXP, while the corporate operating systems (read: NT Server 4 and NT
Dataserver) will be called Windows2002. I don't know when these new
versions will be released, I think that for Windows2002 MS is aiming
for 4th
quarter of 2001 at this point. That is... this coming Autumn!
Regards,
Patrice Boivin
Systems Analyst (Oracle Certified DBA)
Systems Admin & Operations | Admin. et Exploit. des systèmes
Technology Services | Services technologiques
Informatics Branch | Direction de l'informatique
Maritimes Region, DFO | Région des Maritimes, MPO
E-Mail: boivinp_at_mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca <mailto:boivinp_at_mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca>
-----Original Message-----
From: Streeter, Lerone A LBX
[SMTP:StreeLA2_at_HPD.Abbott.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 3:27 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: might be really old topic, but please
take a
look
briefly:
our choice was oracle/NT, based mainly on division/corporate
direction which
was based on the strengths of oracle. widely installed,
industry
leader,
robust platform.
NT was a no-brainer; the majority of our knowledge is NT.
price and
complexity were considered also, even though you have more
control
over
*nix, the price of boxii to run it on as well as the cost of
training and
associated learning curve made *nix an unattractive option.
our user base is small-to-medium so an NT solution should
suffice,
if we
were larger or more widely dispersed or web based; we'd look
harder
at *nix.
remember i said brief.
===========================================
Lerone Streeter
System Analyst
Abbott LBG
StreeLA2_at_hpd.abbott.com
===========================================
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 1:51 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Oh, ha! that is an old one:
Oracle on Unix is the "only" choice.
No need to research at all! Just go out and buy one!
:)
Ross
p.s. give us more info, and you'll get a higher quality
answer. GIGO
|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Leslie Lu [mailto:leslie_y_lu_at_yahoo.com]
|| Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2001 1:37 PM
|| To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
|| Subject: Q: might be really old topic, but please take a
look
||
||
|| Probably this has been posed million times, but I
|| really like to know. We'll have a meeting about this
|| in our company, and I'd love to contribute someting.
|| Any idea on the following issue, any link, paper, etc,
|| will be greatly appreciated.
||
|| pros and cons of
||
|| 1. Oracle vs Sybase
||
|| 2. Unix vs NT
||
||
|| Leslie
||
|| __________________________________________________
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|| Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices
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|| Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ:
http://www.orafaq.com
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|| Author: Leslie Lu
|| INET: leslie_y_lu_at_yahoo.com
||
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-- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Boivin, Patrice J INET: BoivinP_at_mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Mark Leith INET: mark_at_cool-tools.co.uk Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).Received on Fri May 04 2001 - 10:54:21 CDT
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