ICL PLC and Ingres Ltd have worked together to come up with the Ingres Search Accelerator which they claim offers the same data search and text retrieval functionality as a Teradata DBC/1012 a stand-alone database engine aimed at the DB2 market – but for the Unix user pursuing client-server computing and distributed processing. The Ingres Search Accelerator combines ICL’s Content Addressable File Search – CAFS – technology with the Ingres Query Optimiser. Using the Search Accelerator, data searches are run using software instructions hard-coded onto chips rather than running a software process in a CPU, so that data can be delivered at the transfer rate of the disk freeing the CPU for other work. Graham Taylor, ICL’s business software manager, says that the chips are on a board that plugs into a VMEbus and can then be plugged into any vendor’s Unix box. The Accelerator software is owned by ICL but is written for System V.4, while Ingres provided the Query Optimiser that acts as a smart disc interface seeking the fastest way to handle a database request. The Acclerator is reported to handle up to 4Gb of data and each board is said to handle 4 simultaneous queries with room on most Unix boxes for 10 boards. Initially available on ICL’s DRS 3000 and DRS 6000 machines, versions for databases other than Ingres are under development with Informix and Oracle, courtesy of ICL.
