SQL Compliant
InterBase is an SQL standards-compliant database. InterBase strictly follows SQL industry standards. It supports unicode and is ideal for any character set globally, and it offers multiple-join unicode, real-time event alerts and our patent-pending Change Views’ SQL-based change tracking.
- Change Views. Change Views speeds up applications and lowers network traffic and costs by identifying and fetching only the changes made to the database. Read the Change Views white paper.
- Multigenerational Architecture. Connects with consistent database snapshots, ensures readers don’t block writers from making changes and increases scalability.
- Event Alerts. InterBase Events enable a real-time alert to connected clients when a change is committed. This saves on CPU intensive database polling and increases database scalability.
- Customizable. Easily customize InterBase with custom field types, stored procedures, custom exceptions and triggers. Customization helps automate database logic, data transformation and easy maintenance.
- Generators. Generators allow you to fetch sequential numbers that are typically used for primary keys. InterBase will not assign duplicate keys. Generators enable InterBase to produce key values centrally in the database.
Flexible
- Multiplatform support. Runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS. InterBase also supports heterogeneous OS connectivity across all supported platforms.
- Cross-Language Support. InterBase supports Java, C, C++, .NET, Delphi, PHP and Ruby and integrates closely with RAD Studio IDEs. Visual Studio developers can work with InterBase through ADO.NET or ODBC connectors.
- Server Data Storage. Commercial-grade data storage on both server and clients powering online and offline application capabilities. InterBase Server, Developer and Trial editions are suitable for installed servers.
- Client Data Storage. InterBase ToGo and IBLite versions can be used as standalone embedded databases with local storage. Local storage reduces the need for network traffic to reduce costs and improves app speed and user experience.
- Single On-Disk format. InterBase’s single-file format allows you to deploy your applications anywhere. A unified on-disk format allows fast support and testing directly from your development machine.
Lightweight
InterBase is one of the fastest native databases available, with a small, lightweight footprint. InterBase leverages today's multicore CPUs and multi-CPU systems, along with a unique versioning approach and advanced disk I/O caching, to retrieve and update your data blazingly fast.
- Small footprint. In its smallest distribution, InterBase is only a few megabytes. The small on-disk footprint and small in-memory requirements make it ideal for any device requiring a commercial-grade embeddable database engine.
- Fast Install. InterBase server installs completely in seconds with an embeddable installer to allow for silent install of server and client drivers. When it comes to InterBase ToGo, no installation is required! Just deploy the InterBase libraries along with your application.
- Faster Data. InterBase’s Change Views improves data speed and scalability by dramatically reducing the amount of data moved, lowering data costs, network traffic, server CPU demand, and disk I/O.
- Write-Ahead Logging. Journaling provides the security of immediately writing changes to disk with the benefits of a full in-memory database system. Enable journaling through a single line of SQL without any changes in your application.
Admin Free
- Admin-Free. InterBase will just run and run and run! Even with the hardest working databases processing 10,000+ transactions each second, it could be years before you need to backup and restore the latest InterBase database server. InterBase servers are so good at being admin free, the Mars rover used a copy on Mars (it is too far to send a DBA!).
- Rapid crash recovery. InterBase was one of the first ACID-compliant databases on the market, and this foundation means it will get back up and running very quickly following any server crash. In fact, InterBase is so good at this, it has been deployed in tanks, helicopters and medical equipment globally where time to recover is critical following any system reboots.
- Disaster Recovery. InterBase also offers a range of failover capabilities, including incremental backups, journals, point-in-time recovery, and database shadowing.
Security
Cyber attacks against databases and loss of data can be costly and lead to loss of customers’ trust (and business), regulatory action, and even large fines. InterBase provides over-the-wire and at-rest encryption, separate security login, and role-based user security. InterBase encryption adds very little overhead to database speed and performance while still maintaining full on-disk encryption.
- Cross-Platform Encryption. InterBase supports encryption over the wire between server and clients, and data at rest (both DES and AES 256-bit encryption). InterBase encryption is built in as part of its cross-platform single file format.
- Separate Security login. Data visibility is defined by a specialist login to the database (SYSDSO) with column-level granularity that ensures even developers cannot bypass encryption to view and search for sensitive data.
- Reduced Risk. Built-in granular column-level encryption drastically reduces the risk of data breaches through requirement changes and product refactoring as your data layer (and not your application) is managing data visibility.
- Role-Based User Security. Define user security roles that align with job roles (Accountant, Accounts Manager, Sales, HR, etc.) to easily add or remove access to both data and data-changes tracking across your system.
- Encrypted Backups. InterBase also supports a backup-specific encryption key that allows an encrypted backup to be created and answers the needs of those requiring command-line backups to be run via scheduling.
Disaster Recovery
Your app and business runs on data, making database disaster recovery a critical feature. Interbase supports effective disaster recovery planning through live backups, incremental dumps, multithreaded restore, write-ahead logging, and point-in-time recovery. The database can be backed up via command line, through our admin tools, via code using the backup APIs, or via the ODBC driver GUI.
- Live Backups. InterBase’s multiversioning architecture enables backup snapshots to be taken while users are still connected and changing the database.
- Distinguished Data Dumps. Distinguished data dumps quickly create a read-only copy of your database. In a DR scenario, switching the database to read/write is faster than waiting for a restore. First-time setups create a complete copy of the database, while subsequent runs update the copy with only the changes to the primary database.
- Fast Restores. InterBase restores using multiple threads on multiple processors to ensure the fastest possible restoration of the database and indexes.
- Write-Ahead Logging. InterBase’s journaling provides the security of immediately writing changes to disk, with the benefits of a full in-memory database system. Enable journaling with a single line of SQL.
- Point-in-Time Recovery. Quickly revert the database to any second in time using journal archives. Journal archives can be stored off device to provide a fast way to recover even if the backup hasn’t run.
Replication
InterBase’s Change Views reduces development time, network costs, and server CPU demand associated with other replication methods that rely on traditional change-tracking methods. As a result, development teams benefit from cost savings, time savings, and improved user experience.
- Log-less replication. InterBase’s Change Views eliminates common scalability issues associated with log tables and time-stamp fields.
- Secure Data Change Subscriptions. Once a device is granted rights and subscribed to specific tables or columns of data, it tracks what is changing at field level for that subscription. This simple model enables access to data changes to be securely managed and easily scaled out with less code to develop, refactor, build, and test.
- The Most Secure Change Tracking on the Market. Change Views not only makes it easy to identify what has changed, it controls who can track those changes and prevents others from even guessing at data changes.
- Easily Fetch Data Deltas. Change Views provides just the field-level deltas of what has changed, allowing developers to give detailed analysis back to the end user while lowering data-movement costs. Change Views data can be queried via SQL before syncing to ensure you never end up with a surprise data bill.
