The ANTs Data Server (ADS) is a client-server RDBMS which is accessible solely through SQL statements (stored procedures and provided ODBC/JDBC drivers). While billed primarily as a stand-alone DB offering, the vendor also notes that the system could be used to offload high-use "hot spot" tables from existing RDBMS structures. ANTs is targeted primarily to multi-processor (SMP) servers. The DB does work on single processor systems, but the highest performance gains will be noted on multi-processor systems with ample memory.

Each ADS deployment supports three modes of operation: Client-server mode, for large SMP configurations; collocated mode which is optimized for SMP configurations with a single application or application server; and embedded mode which is optimized for smaller systems where a single application presents a small number of threads to the server.

According to ANTs Software, the performance gains of their DB are derived from technologies including:

- A message-passing, microthreaded, parallel processing execution engine that allows for non-blocking execution of concurrent queries

- An optimized B+ tree index design that enables almost lock-free and latch-free database access, even during write operations

- Runtime compilation of SQL instructions to machine code

- Data structures/tables that are optimized for retrieval from main memory; main memory and disk storage are internally treated similarly

Other features of the RDBMS include SQL92 compatibility (full support for Entry-level, with added features from the Intermediate and Full specs); support for stored procedures; ODBC and JDBC (Type 1) clients for accessing the DB; and support for online backups. Additionally, high availability features of the DB include support for the implementation of master-slave pairs, with the slave continuously replicated to the master via synchronous log-shipping. In the event of failure on the master server processing continues automatically from the slave, and once the master returns to service it can be automatically restored to a synchronized state with the slave server.

The latest ANTs release, now generally available, adds compatibility with MySQL data types, functions and SQL extensions; support for Informix stored procedures and triggers; and support for Microsoft .NET.

ADS is available now. Visit the ANTs Software Web site for further information.