DBMS > Adabas vs. AlaSQL vs. dBASE vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Oracle

System Properties Comparison Adabas vs. AlaSQL vs. dBASE vs. Microsoft Azure Data Explorer vs. Oracle

Editorial information provided by DB-Engines

Name

Description

OLTP - DBMS for mainframes and Linux/Unix/Windows environments

used typically together with the Natural programming platform

JavaScript DBMS library

dBase was one of the first databases with a development environment on PC's. Its latest version dBase V is still sold as dBase classic, which needs a DOS Emulation. The up-to-date product is dBase plus.

Fully managed big data interactive analytics platform

Widely used RDBMS

Primary database model

Multivalue DBMS

Document store
Relational DBMS

Relational DBMS

column oriented

Relational DBMS

Secondary database models

Document store

If a column is of type dynamic docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-types/dynamic then it's possible to add arbitrary JSON documents in this cell
Event Store

this is the general usage pattern at Microsoft. Billing, Logs, Telemetry events are stored in ADX and the state of an individual entity is defined by the arg_max(timestamps)
Spatial DBMS
Search engine

support for complex search expressions docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/parseoperator FTS, Geospatial docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/geo-point-to-geohash-function distributed search -> ADX acts as a distributed search engine
Time Series DBMS

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer/time-series-analysis

Document store
Graph DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
RDF store

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Spatial DBMS

with Oracle Spatial and Graph
Vector DBMS

since Oracle 23

DB-Engines Ranking measures the popularity of database management systems
Trend Chart

Score	3.58
Rank	#91	Overall
	#1	Multivalue DBMS

Score	0.49
Rank	#259	Overall
	#40	Document stores
	#120	Relational DBMS

Score	11.18
Rank	#44	Overall
	#28	Relational DBMS

Score	5.16
Rank	#69	Overall
	#37	Relational DBMS

Score	1234.27
Rank	#1	Overall
	#1	Relational DBMS

Website

www.softwareag.com/en_corporate/platform/adabas-natural.html

alasql.org

www.dbase.com

azure.microsoft.com/services/data-explorer

www.oracle.com/database

Technical documentation

github.com/AlaSQL/alasql

www.dbase.com/support/knowledgebase

docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-explorer

docs.oracle.com/en/database

Developer

Software AG

Andrey Gershun & Mathias R. Wulff

Asthon Tate

Microsoft

Oracle

Initial release

1971

2014

1979

2019

1980

Current release

dBASE 2019, 2019

cloud service with continuous releases

23c, September 2023

License

Commercial or Open Source

commercial

Open Source

MIT-License

commercial

restricted free version is available

Cloud-based only

Only available as a cloud service

yes

DBaaS offerings (sponsored links)

Database as a Service

Providers of DBaaS offerings, please contact us to be listed.

Implementation language

JavaScript

C and C++

Server operating systems

BS2000
Linux
Unix
Windows
z/OS
z/VSE

server-less, requires a JavaScript environment (browser, Node.js)

DOS

dBase Classic
Windows

dBase Pro

hosted

AIX
HP-UX
Linux
OS X
Solaris
Windows
z/OS

Data scheme

yes

schema-free

yes

Fixed schema with schema-less datatypes (dynamic)

yes

Schemaless in JSON and XML columns

Typing

predefined data types such as float or date

yes

bool, datetime, dynamic, guid, int, long, real, string, timespan, double: docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/query/scalar-data-types

yes

XML support

Some form of processing data in XML format, e.g. support for XML data structures, and/or support for XPath, XQuery or XSLT.

yes

Secondary indexes

yes

all fields are automatically indexed

yes

SQL

Support of SQL

yes

with add-on product Adabas SQL Gateway

Close to SQL99, but no user access control, stored procedures and host language bindings.

Kusto Query Language (KQL), SQL subset

yes

with proprietary extensions

APIs and other access methods

HTTP API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway
SOAP-based API

with add-on software Adabas SOA Gateway

JavaScript API

none

The IDE can access other DBMS or ODBC-sources.

Microsoft SQL Server communication protocol (MS-TDS)
RESTful HTTP API

JDBC
ODBC
ODP.NET
Oracle Call Interface (OCI)

Supported programming languages

Natural

JavaScript

dBase proprietary IDE

.Net
Go
Java
JavaScript (Node.js)
PowerShell
Python
R

C
C#
C++
Clojure
Cobol
Delphi
Eiffel
Erlang
Fortran
Groovy
Haskell
Java
JavaScript
Lisp
Objective C
OCaml
Perl
PHP
Python
R
Ruby
Scala
Tcl
Visual Basic

Server-side scripts

Stored procedures

in Natural

The IDE can access stored procedures in other database systems.

Yes, possible languages: KQL, Python, R

PL/SQL

also stored procedures in Java possible

Triggers

yes

see docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/kusto/management/updatepolicy

yes

Partitioning methods

Methods for storing different data on different nodes

yes, with additonal products like Adabas Cluster Services, Adabas Parallel Services, Adabas Vista

none

Sharding

Implicit feature of the cloud service

Sharding, horizontal partitioning

Replication methods

Methods for redundantly storing data on multiple nodes

yes, with add-on product Event Replicator

none

yes

Implicit feature of the cloud service. Replication either local, cross-facility or geo-redundant.

Multi-source replication
Source-replica replication

MapReduce

Offers an API for user-defined Map/Reduce methods

Spark connector (open source): github.com/Azure/azure-kusto-spark

can be realized in PL/SQL

Consistency concepts

Methods to ensure consistency in a distributed system

Immediate Consistency

none

Eventual Consistency
Immediate Consistency

Immediate Consistency

Foreign keys

Referential integrity

yes

Transaction concepts

Support to ensure data integrity after non-atomic manipulations of data

ACID

yes

only for local storage and DOM-storage

not for dBase internal data, but IDE does support transactions when accessing external DBMS

ACID

isolation level can be parameterized

Concurrency

Support for concurrent manipulation of data

yes

Durability

Support for making data persistent

yes

by using IndexedDB, SQL.JS or proprietary FileStorage

yes

In-memory capabilities

Is there an option to define some or all structures to be held in-memory only.

yes

Version 12c introduced the new option 'Oracle Database In-Memory'

User concepts

Access control

only with OS-specific tools (e.g. IBM RACF, CA Top Secret)

Access rights for users and roles

Azure Active Directory Authentication

fine grained access rights according to SQL-standard

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