Next: A little history Up: Build your own DBMS!! Previous: Build your own DBMS!!

# Introduction

This article describes a project, recently completed at M-Tech, for which we constructed a client/server database management system (DBMS), from the ground up. This DBMS was built using off-the-shelf components, some tools recycled from previous projects and a modest amount of new code.

You might ask why we developed a new DBMS, considering the diversity and quality of commercial DBMS-s already on the market. The answer lies in the stringent demands of a project we had contracted for. This project required an inexpensive, fast, reliable DBMS that could support highly secure transactions over a slow public network. There are commercial DBMS products that are inexpensive, fast, or secure, but we are not aware of any that combine all of these merits, as well as responsive performance over something as slow as a modem.

This article is of particular interest because the technology we developed for this project can be utilized to construct systems that carry any of the stringent demands of our original project, such as:

- Responsive DBMS performance over a slow TCP/IP network.
- Strong security, based on public-key cryptographic technology.
- Inexpensive system implementation, component licensing and ongoing maintenance.

Next: A little history Up: Build your own DBMS!! Previous: Build your own DBMS!!