Objectivity/DB Deployed By TRW Systems; Objectivity/DB Improves the Extensibility and Reduces Development Time for Large-Scale Scientific Data Analysis System.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 24, 2002

Objectivity, Inc., the leading provider of scalable high-performance databases for the management of complex data, today announced that Objectivity/DB is serving as the database engine within a data analysis system deployed by TRW. Developed by TRW Systems in Redondo Beach, California, the data analysis system is used by U.S. government scientists who collect and analyze scientific data.

The TRW system was designed to process billions of observations from government experiments and allows scientists to perform impromptu analysis across entire data sets. Objectivity/DB greatly reduced TRW's development time by allowing the entire system to be developed within a natural object paradigm, eliminating the need to descend to a procedural language to convert objects to and from a relational row and table format. Despite the fact that the TRW developers had no experience with object databases, the process of storing persistent objects was very natural and almost transparent to the programmers. With Objectivity/C++, there is a direct mapping between a data model, an application and a database.

TRW's system is designed as an n-tiered architecture that is currently implemented on Sun Solaris. The desktop client is a Java applet that can be run within a Java Virtual Machine inside a conventional browser. TRW has created a class hierarchy for scientific data that can easily handle new types of instruments and experiments.

Objectivity was selected based on its performance relative to three different criteria. The first was the ability to ingest data in one-writer mode, to avoid the performance issues of lock contention, at a rate of 2000 items per second. The second was that access had to be interactive for 50 simultaneous users. As a practical matter, this meant that the system had to be able to provide interactive analytical solutions to all concurrent users. The third requirement was that the persistent model be efficient enough to store billions of items within an economical storage system. The system also needed to be capable of scaling to much higher volumes in the future without losing its interactive character.

Maximizing the performance of the database was a complex challenge. Objectivity's high-performance results in part from its page server architecture, which sends groups of objects between server and application processes. Most other object databases use an object server architecture that sends single objects between the server and the application. "A key factor in the success of the application was the use of clustering strategies that took advantage of its page server architecture," said David Capka, Technical Fellow at TRW.

"This has been a model project from the outset," said Leon Guzenda, chief technology officer at Objectivity, Inc. "A pilot project established the viability and scalable throughput of the system and gave TRW and the government scientists the confidence to build an innovative and highly productive system."

More About TRW, Inc.

TRW Inc. provides high-technology products and services to the automotive, aerospace and information technology markets worldwide. The company's news releases are available through TRW's corporate web site at http://www.trw.com.

More About Objectivity, Inc.

Objectivity, Inc., is the leading provider of distributed, scalable object databases with unrivaled support for mixed-language development and mixed-hardware environments. Objectivity boosts developer productivity, shortens time to market, and provides the ideal platform for mission-critical applications requiring continuous performance and adaptability to future technologies. Objectivity, Inc., is headquartered in Mountain View, California, U.S.A. For more information, contact Objectivity by e-mail at [e-mail], on the World Wide Web at http://www.objectivity.com or by calling 650/254-7100.

Note to editors: Objectivity/DB is a registered trademark of Objectivity, Inc. All other company or product names mentioned herein remain the property of their respective owners.