We kindly request any customer on Windows 2016 to upgrade to Windows 2019 by 31st January 2025.

New to Reality, MultiValue, NoSQL Databases… then read on

Link to a brief overview of Reality, with external links to MultiValue/SQL/NoSQL

Database Technology Background:
Relational (SQL – Wiki Lookup) databases are prevalent owing to the marketplace once dominated by providers like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. There are also the so called open and/or free offerings like MySQL and PostgreSQL which may not be so “open”, “free”, or suitable for resilient commercial use.

However, there is another way to describe and store data in a more efficient and flexible way…
the MultiValue ‘MV’ Way.

SQL Enquiry, compared to MultiValue: “a real world example”

The following is an actual MV site example, where an SQL database is maintained alongside an MV. In order to verify the data between the two systems some queries had to be written. Below is one of the SQL queries, compared to what was needed for MV to achieve the same thing.

SQL Query Below      Click on [MV Query] to see the equivalent…

SELECT
category_minors.major_id
SUM(invoice_detail.qty_ship * product_master.pieces ) AS TotQty,
FROM
invoice_master
INNER JOIN invoice_detail ON
(invoice_master.invoice_id=invoice_detail.invoice_id)
INNER JOIN product_skus ON
(invoice_detail.sku_id=product_skus.sku_id)
INNER JOIN product_master ON
(product_skus.prod_id=product_master.prod_id)
INNER JOIN category_codes ON
(product_master.category_id=category_codes.category_id)
INNER JOIN category_minors ON
(category_codes.minor_id=category_minors.minor_id)
INNER JOIN category_majors ON
(category_minors.major_id=category_majors.major_id)
WHERE
(invoice_master.fiscal_year = 2015) AND
(invoice_master.fiscal_period = 4) AND
(category_minors.major_id = ‘M101’)
GROUP BY
category_minors.major_id

MV Query:
SORT INVOICES WITH F.YEAR = “2015” AND WITH F.PERIOD = “04”  BY-EXP MAJOR.ID = “M101” TOTAL PCS.QTY DET-SUPP

…somewhat shorter, easier to understand and more efficient in resources to process 🙂

What is MultiValue?

The term MultiValue was introduced to promote the use of Pick/Reality derived multidimensional databases in order to differentiate from relational. For further reference also refer to International Spectrum and MultiValue – WiKi Lookup.

MultiValue, or just MV, is an efficient and flexible database technology originally designed as Pick and then Reality to work on a virtual machine providing a database and operating environment that predates relational SQL – WiKi Lookup, post-relational and NoSQL – WiKi Lookup.

Compared to relational SQL databases, MultiValue (MV) has:

  • For each database table (file in MV):
    Each field (attribute in MV) within a record/row (item in MV) can have repeating data elements (values in MV) and each value can have multiple sub-values – for relational databases each field is typically fixed to one value.
  • Each attribute, value and sub-value is dynamic in length – for relational databases each field typically has a fixed length.
  • A more “natural language like” and efficient built-in enquiry and reporting tool…
    … refer to the [MV Query]  tab for example comparison with a relational database.
  • Inbuilt database environment features that typically mean little to no ongoing maintenance – relational databases have always needed dedicated Database Administrators (DBAs).

When compared to relational databases these features of MV alone typically provide MultiValue Databases with higher performance, lower volumes of stored data, lower total cost of ownership – while being much more adaptable for application building and redevelopment.

It is not just data, it’s Reality…

Reality is the original commercial MultiValue Database that includes a complete development and operational environment – inbuilt application programming, enquiry and print spooling. It also has integrated resilience from simple transaction based local data saving to optional twin FailSafe and remote site disaster recovery systems. In fact Reality predates all commercial MultiValue, NoSQL and Relational Databases, if not all databases.

Reality also offers extensive interoperability as it’s SQL-enabled with inbuilt features like ODBC/JDBC access and SQL-VIEW/UPDATE. It also has Web Services, ActiveX, TCP Socket and web-enabled programming and user interfaces. With binary data also efficiently stored within items, picture and sound files can reside in the same database rather than deploying separate database technology and external web servers. Updated versions have been massively feature enhanced, when compared to the original model applied to early microcode on proprietary hardware going back to 1973. Reality, while retaining the original efficient and fully scalable underlying virtual machine model, meets the needs of more modern applications operating from small single systems to large mission critical environments running many thousands of users across many business sectors.

For more information about Reality, Pick/MV and NoSQL refer to About Us

Reality Host Platforms

Reality has moved on from proprietary hardware and now runs under the latest open hardware/host operating systems from Sun Microsystems SPARC with Solaris, Intel with Windows/Linux and IBM pSeries with AIX. This means that as well as scaling up for additional users based on host scalability, you can also typically scale up the complexities of Reality data access without the overhead that’s imposed by typical relational database technology. For further information refer to the [Host Platforms] tab on the Host Platforms page.

Reality Product Information

For further details on the Reality product set refer to the Product and demo pages.
Information on NEC Software Solutions, Reality, our partners and our customers are under About us