Start-Up to Smash Data Bottlenecks
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A problem that has long bedeviled database administrators is how to use diverse data sources with different update schedules in different locations, a dilemma exacerbated by the demands of providing information over the Web.

But Michael Stonebraker, the long, tall database management pioneer, said he's found a solution -- which is arriving just in time to integrate data for new Web e-commerce applications.

Stonebraker said his new company, Cohera (telnet://www.cohera.com), will launch a product that forms "a federation of data sources," leaving existing systems in place but making their data Web-accessible through a central clearinghouse. Cohera's Data Federation System (DFS), due May 1, will cost $150,000 for an entry-level system.

Today's data warehouses provide a clearinghouse function, he said, but only for selected data. Frequently, the data needed is not in the data warehouse because it is buried in real-time, day-to-day operational systems. "A lot of the data that answers the questions you would like to ask can't be warehoused," Stonebraker said, because the query was not anticipated when the warehouse was built.

At the same time, queries from remote users would disrupt day-to-day operations if they were allowed to intrude on systems that are busy collecting sales figures or tracking production. Administrators of such systems typically freeze out such queries until after the work day, Stonebraker said.

The DFS creates a solution, not via technological breakthrough, but by imposing rules derived from the economic sphere. In effect, it uses a charge-back system in which a database is asked how much it will charge to answer a given query. If the system is busy, the price will be high and the query is likely to wait in line until a less busy time -- unless its originator is willing to pay a steep price.

Stonebraker said software between the data source and the central clearinghouse, called the Site Manager, brokers the exchange. Local database administrators retain control of their data through the Site Manager, but it lets the door to the data swing open any time system resources allow it to field a query.

Cohera, in Hayward, Calif., is backed by venture capital firms Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Sippl-Macdonald Ventures and Merrill Lynch. Stonebraker designed the Ingres relational database system, which battled Oracle for prominence in the late 1980s.