What is it?
Adabas is a database management system for IBM mainframes, Vax
hardware, Unix and Windows.
A few years ago a recruitment agency database specialist told
Computer Weekly that there was no point in acquiring Adabas skills,
since there were few new licence sales, and you would be condemning
yourself to a lifetime of maintenance work.
Adabas supplier Software AG does not help its cause, with
promotional literature that refers to client/server architectures
and the Natural "4GL" (fourth generation language) - terms largely
discarded elsewhere in the industry before the turn of the
century.
However, Adabas is far from a legacy product: Software AG has
continued to sell new Adabas licences, has kept its base of
3,000-plus installations, has successfully extended itself into a
middleware provider, and leads the market for native XML platforms
with Tamino. It is partnering with the likes of Fujitsu to deliver
service oriented architectures.
Adabas has been steadily decoupled from Natural, with an
increasing emphasis on Java, Eclipse, .net and Ajax
development.
Adabas 2006, the latest release of its pre-relational database
management system, promises 150,000 transactions a second with a
much lower staff and system overhead than relational databases.
The relational Adabas D is shipped with Sun's Staroffice, and it
is the basis of SAP's SAPDB and MySQL's MaxDB.
Where did it originate?
Software AG was founded in Germany in 1969, and Adabas launched
in 1971. The company has partnered with other suppliers, including
IBM, SAP, Fujitsu and Microsoft.
Adabas D/SAPDB/MaxDB went through a variety of early
incarnations, under names such as Reflex, Supra 2 and Entire SQL.
Beginning its commercial life with Nixdorf, it passed through
Software AG's hands to SAP. SAP open-sourced SAPDB in 2000 in an
effort to build a wider user community with no interest in
marketing it separately, SAP signed an agreement with MySQL AG. The
two companies develop the product jointly.
What is it for?
Although available for all commonly used platforms, Adabas is
essentially a mainframe database used in 24x7, high-throughput
online transaction processing applications. Adabas D and its
offspring offer a much wider range of opportunities, with
SAPDB/MaxDB offering a possible backdoor into lucrative SAP work
that would otherwise be barred to self-funding newbies by the "no
experience, no job/no job, no experience" conundrum.
What makes it special?
MaxDB can be downloaded free, but through SAP provides the back
end to some of the most critical enterprise applications. Adabas
itself continues to win analyst plaudits but few new sales.
How difficult is it to master?
Mastering Adabas will require a succession of four- and five-day
courses. MySQL has started offering MaxDB courses (three days for
database administrators, four days for developers) at its training
centre in Munich.
Where is it used?
Software AG has more than 3,000 customers, most of them using
large, mission-critical systems. They include Comet, Daimler
Chrysler, Sony Music, Vodafone and a variety of local authorities
and police services. Software AG is strongest in Germany SAP and
MySQL are also based in Germany. More than 3,000 SAP installations
use SAPDB.
What systems does it run on?
Most current operating systems, including z/OS, IBM Aix,
Solaris, HP-UX, Linux, OpenVMS and Windows.
Training
Adabas training takes place at Software AG's UK training centre
in Derby. MaxDB is available for download, and there are resources
and community links online.
http://mysql.bigbiz.com/downloads/maxdb/7.6.00.html
rates of pay
Adabas database administrator jobs come up rarely and usually
demand experience, but they pay upwards of £38,000.