SAP DB, mySQL MaxDB, whatDB?

SAP DB, mySQL MaxDB, whatDB?

What I knew before I’ve started to search some information in order to clarify those names of this database product was following: SAP had long term issue with database software. Although SAP is known as a powerful ERP vendor with its highly OS and DB platform independent software it was always the pain when some other companies get their piece of cake in business e.g. in database software area. When SAP delivers its R/3 there was always a space for database provider in order to get R/3 run. For many year SAP wanted to involve their own DB platform in SAP EPR software implementations. It is still not clear what is the origin of SAP DB but according this it seems that SAP had it spoon off from ADABAS D version 6.1.15.57 very old and reliable DB system called ADABAS D from German Software AG company in late 90’s. Software AG has it own branch of ADABAS includes advanced database management system. ADABAS database development started in 1977 as a research project of Technical University in Berlin. Early 80s it became a database product that subsequently was owned by companies like: Nixdorf, Siemens Nixdorf, Software AG and today by SAP AG. The name of database was changed several times like: VDN, Reflex, Supra 2, DDB/4, Entire SQL-DB-Server and ADABAS.

ADABAS is known as world's fastest OLTP databases very famous for many years. After SAP AG took over one arm of ADABAS in 1997 he completely renewed and enhanced ABABAS and changes its name to SAP DB. So finally SAP has its own database. On other hand there SAP APO system has been released and one of its features is live Cache. To be simplified you can imagine live cache as one huge memory which is able to store all the data from large (TB) in operational memory – very high volumes of data must be permanently held always available in computer memory. This was another point of view why SAP needed its own DB system. Some of SAP software like mySAP Supply Chain Management - Advanced Planner and Optimizer (SCM-APO) and mySAP Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) use SAP DB solely. SAP DB is supporting all mainstream OS like: Linux (Intel), Microsoft Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, Tru64 AIX. Since October 2000 SAP DB sources additionally were released as open source under a GNU General Public License (GPL).

From SAP DB to mySQL MaxDB.

Lately in May 2003, SAP started cooperation with MySQL AB. As part of this agreement, the SAP DB database will be delivered under the name MySQL MaxDB from database version 7.5. With this agreement MySQL acquired full commercial rights to develop and market future releases of SAP DB. SAP will continue its investment in SAP DB development, maintenance and support. It seems that in future there will be only one name of this product MaxDB for details see here. For existing or new SAP customers this means no change. They obtain support of SAP AG and profit from open source development model.

When you buy SAP NetWeaver now you get:

Database Version SAP Release

MaxDB 7.6 SAP Netweaver 2004s

MaxDB 7.5 SAP Netweaver 2004

If you want to evaluate MaxDB you can download it from mysql.com from SDN (under technologies area) or previous releases from sapdb.org.

P.S.: Do you have some information about SAP DB, mySQL MaxDB, whatDB etc? Please feel free to post in comments area. We can enrich this article together!