- Introduction
- Sybase SQL Anywhere Studio 8.0
- Relational Databases
- Synchronization Tools
- Administration/Development Tools
- Conclusion
Sybase SQL Anywhere Studio 8.0
According to Gartner Dataquest, Sybase's SQL Anywhere Studio product garnered 68% of the mobile database market in the year 2000, making it the clear leader in terms of market share. Part of the reason for this success is the fact that Sybase has targeted this market for much longer than many of its competitors, having owned the market share lead since 1996. Released in December 2001, SQL Anywhere Studio 8.0 offers relational database capabilities for Novell NetWare, Palm, UNIX (including Sun Solaris and Linux), Wind River VxWorks, Microsoft Windows, and Windows CE. Mobile database synchronization is supported against a variety of enterprise relational database management systems, including Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere, Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise 11.5 and greater, IBM DB2 UDB 7.1, Microsoft SQL Server 7 and 2000, and Oracle8i and 9i. A 60-day evaluation version can be downloaded free of charge from http://www.sybase.com/downloads.
SQL Anywhere Studio is actually more than just a stand-alone database (thus the "Studio" in the product title). It's actually a collection of software development, synchronization, and database tools that offers an unprecedented level of flexibility. Using SQL Anywhere Studio 8.0, you can develop database applications in C, C++, Delphi, Visual Basic, or Java for a wide variety of desktop, embedded, and mobile computing platforms. Database products included with SQL Anywhere Studio 8.0 include a full-featured relational database management system (RDBMS) capable of operating as a workgroup server or an embedded database, as well as a tiny-footprint, slimmed-down single-user relational database. Synchronization options include support for message-based replication to the Sybase enterprise-level Adapter Server Enterprise product or three-tier stream-based replication to a wide variety of back-end data sources (including Sybase ASE, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2). Let's take a closer look at these capabilities by delving into the individual components of the Studio product.