ACTION-964: Oracle AtomDB

[Tom Hume]

I picked up ACTION-964, to look into Oracle AtomDB with a view to
seeing whether it should be referenced alongside HTML5 Storage in
MWABP. This followed a comment from Nikunj Mehta of Oracle.

The main reference to this product that I could find was the white
paper which Nikunj pointed us to at:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/feeds/pdf/oracle%20atomdb.pdf

which explains AtomDB as a means of transparently adding
synchronisation of data to web applications which would otherwise
presume the existence of a connection. AtomDB is implemented as a
browser plugin. However, I'm not clear how "alive" this product is.
Searching the Oracle site for "atomdb" found a few empty forums, I
can't see anywhere to get hold of the AtomDB plugin and I'm wondering
whether it's available anywhere.

AtomDB positions itself as a caching and synchronisation layer, rather
than a mechanism for general "offline storage"; so it wouldn't seem
appropriate to add to section 3.1.2.1 (which talks about persistent
storage) or section 3.5.1.1 (talking about improving startup times).
It might be appropriate for inclusion into section 3.1.3.2, but we
don't mention any other technologies in this section. It might be
relevant for inclusion into the Offline Web Applications note
(http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/).

I don't think we should add a reference to AtomDB to a BP document
unless the plugin is available somewhere and in use.

Tom

--
Future Platforms: hungry and foolish since 2000
work: Tom.Hume@... play: tomhume.org

[Sangwhan Moon]

On 2009/10/14, at 10:43 PM, Tom Hume wrote:

> I picked up ACTION-964, to look into Oracle AtomDB with a view to
> seeing whether it should be referenced alongside HTML5 Storage in
> MWABP. This followed a comment from Nikunj Mehta of Oracle.
>
> The main reference to this product that I could find was the white
> paper which Nikunj pointed us to at:
>
> http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/feeds/pdf/oracle%20atomdb.pdf
>
> which explains AtomDB as a means of transparently adding
> synchronisation of data to web applications which would otherwise
> presume the existence of a connection. AtomDB is implemented as a
> browser plugin. However, I'm not clear how "alive" this product is.
> Searching the Oracle site for "atomdb" found a few empty forums, I
> can't see anywhere to get hold of the AtomDB plugin and I'm wondering
> whether it's available anywhere.

I wasn't able to find one either, and even with a plug-in this still  
lacks the public availability of a developer implementation reference,  
in case a browser/device vendor needs to port it to their platform -  
this itself would make it extremely difficult to be a generally  
acceptable solution - cross-platform availability (or portability)  
would be crucial for anything mentioned here.

> AtomDB positions itself as a caching and synchronisation layer, rather
> than a mechanism for general "offline storage"; so it wouldn't seem
> appropriate to add to section 3.1.2.1 (which talks about persistent
> storage) or section 3.5.1.1 (talking about improving startup times).
> It might be appropriate for inclusion into section 3.1.3.2, but we
> don't mention any other technologies in this section. It might be
> relevant for inclusion into the Offline Web Applications note
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/).
>
> I don't think we should add a reference to AtomDB to a BP document
> unless the plugin is available somewhere and in use.

My belief is that mentioning a specific plug-in in the BP document  
would be contradicting to the general applicability of the BP document  
as it is. If there would be something that mentions client side  
storage, that should ideally be a pointer to DOM Storage or Offline  
Web Applications as you have pointed out.

Sangwhan

--
Sangwhan Moon <smoon@...>, Opera Software ASA
Skype: innodb1 | Mobile: [phone]

[Jo Rabin-2]

Seems to me that this is well and truly closed. Thanks for looking into
it Tom.

Jo

On 15/10/2009 04:08, Sangwhan Moon wrote:

>
> On 2009/10/14, at 10:43 PM, Tom Hume wrote:
>
>> I picked up ACTION-964, to look into Oracle AtomDB with a view to
>> seeing whether it should be referenced alongside HTML5 Storage in
>> MWABP. This followed a comment from Nikunj Mehta of Oracle.
>>
>> The main reference to this product that I could find was the white
>> paper which Nikunj pointed us to at:
>>
>> http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/feeds/pdf/oracle%20atomdb.pdf
>>
>> which explains AtomDB as a means of transparently adding
>> synchronisation of data to web applications which would otherwise
>> presume the existence of a connection. AtomDB is implemented as a
>> browser plugin. However, I'm not clear how "alive" this product is.
>> Searching the Oracle site for "atomdb" found a few empty forums, I
>> can't see anywhere to get hold of the AtomDB plugin and I'm wondering
>> whether it's available anywhere.
>
> I wasn't able to find one either, and even with a plug-in this still
> lacks the public availability of a developer implementation reference,
> in case a browser/device vendor needs to port it to their platform -
> this itself would make it extremely difficult to be a generally
> acceptable solution - cross-platform availability (or portability) would
> be crucial for anything mentioned here.
>
>> AtomDB positions itself as a caching and synchronisation layer, rather
>> than a mechanism for general "offline storage"; so it wouldn't seem
>> appropriate to add to section 3.1.2.1 (which talks about persistent
>> storage) or section 3.5.1.1 (talking about improving startup times).
>> It might be appropriate for inclusion into section 3.1.3.2, but we
>> don't mention any other technologies in this section. It might be
>> relevant for inclusion into the Offline Web Applications note
>> (http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/).
>>
>> I don't think we should add a reference to AtomDB to a BP document
>> unless the plugin is available somewhere and in use.
>
> My belief is that mentioning a specific plug-in in the BP document would
> be contradicting to the general applicability of the BP document as it
> is. If there would be something that mentions client side storage, that
> should ideally be a pointer to DOM Storage or Offline Web Applications
> as you have pointed out.
>
> Sangwhan
>
> --
> Sangwhan Moon <smoon@...>, Opera Software ASA
> Skype: innodb1 | Mobile: [phone]
>
>

[Nikunj R. Mehta]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for looking in to this. Oracle has not published AtomDB - the  
software - with an intention to work with various parties to prepare  
W3C standards for the techniques behind AtomDB.

As a result, there are now two drafts in front of W3C Webapps WG:

http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/WebSimpleDB/
http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/DataCache/

I do believe that these will be supported in publicly available  
browsers, to say the least, and that the MWABP would consider them at  
a suitable time.

Regards,
Nikunj
On Oct 14, 2009, at 6:43 AM, Tom Hume wrote:

> I picked up ACTION-964, to look into Oracle AtomDB with a view to
> seeing whether it should be referenced alongside HTML5 Storage in
> MWABP. This followed a comment from Nikunj Mehta of Oracle.
>
> The main reference to this product that I could find was the white
> paper which Nikunj pointed us to at:
>
> http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/feeds/pdf/oracle%20atomdb.pdf
>
> which explains AtomDB as a means of transparently adding
> synchronisation of data to web applications which would otherwise
> presume the existence of a connection. AtomDB is implemented as a
> browser plugin. However, I'm not clear how "alive" this product is.
> Searching the Oracle site for "atomdb" found a few empty forums, I
> can't see anywhere to get hold of the AtomDB plugin and I'm wondering
> whether it's available anywhere.
>
> AtomDB positions itself as a caching and synchronisation layer, rather
> than a mechanism for general "offline storage"; so it wouldn't seem
> appropriate to add to section 3.1.2.1 (which talks about persistent
> storage) or section 3.5.1.1 (talking about improving startup times).
> It might be appropriate for inclusion into section 3.1.3.2, but we
> don't mention any other technologies in this section. It might be
> relevant for inclusion into the Offline Web Applications note
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/).
>
> I don't think we should add a reference to AtomDB to a BP document
> unless the plugin is available somewhere and in use.
>
> Tom
>
> --
> Future Platforms: hungry and foolish since 2000
> work: Tom.Hume@... play: tomhume.org

Nikunj
http://o-micron.blogspot.com