Pervasive Adds Network Analysis to SQL Database

The upgrade brings key improvements in performance and reduced total cost of ownership via a new network analysis tool that detects system and network issues before they become a problem, said Gary Allison, vice president of engineering at Pervasive, based here.

"Performance is increased whether people access [the database through the transactional interface or SQL," Allison said.

Solution providers lauded the update. "The biggest thing for users will be the performance benefits," said Bill Bach, president of Goldstar Software, a Flossmoor, Ill.-based Pervasive partner. "On the SQL layer, they've rewritten some SQL optimizers, and [the database runs a lot faster."

Pervasive SQL has its roots in the time-honored Btrieve database, which was once owned by Novell but then spun out into a separate company in 1994.

"Eighty percent of the applications out there today are based on lower-level Btrieve transactional layers," Bach said. "We tested apps there and, in one case, found a dialogue that was running a couple-thousand Btrieve requests four times faster [and another dialogue performing 400 to 500 requests running only 20 percent faster. So the improvements vary."

The Pervasive SQL database has a strong presence in the midmarket, particularly for accounting applications. Pervasive's ISV partners in that space include Accpac International and Best Software.

While Pervasive fends off the encroachment of Microsoft's SQL Server in the midmarket, the company continues to work with Great Plains, now part of the software behemoth, to ensure that Great Plains Dynamics accounting applications work "flawlessly" with the Pervasive database, Allison said.

Pervasive is also a big player in the embedded database market, where its software is packaged and sold with applications, said Mark Shainman, an analyst at Meta Group.

In addition, Pervasive has written a new OLE DB provider so the product will fit into Microsoft's .Net framework.

Pervasive SQL Version 8 Desktop Workgroup engines cost $25, and the full-blown client/server engines start at $845 for six users, said company executives. The database runs on Windows, NetWare and Linux and supports older versions of Btrieve.