SAP SQL Anywhere is a proprietary relational database management system (RDBMS) product from SAP. SQL Anywhere was known as Sybase SQL Anywhere prior to the acquisition of

Sybase Sybase, Inc. was an enterprise software and services company. The company produced software relating to relational databases, with facilities located in California and Massachusetts. Sybase was acquired by SAP in 2010; SAP ceased using the Syba ...

by SAP.

History

The database company

obtained the SQL Anywhere technology as part of its acquisition of

PowerBuilder PowerBuilder is an integrated development environment owned by SAP since the acquisition of Sybase in 2010. On July 5, 2016, SAP and Appeon entered into an agreement whereby Appeon, an independent company, would be responsible for developing, s ...

vendor PowerSoft.

Features

SQL Anywhere can be run on

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

Windows CE Windows CE, later known as Windows Embedded CE and Windows Embedded Compact, is a discontinued operating system developed by Microsoft for mobile and embedded devices. It was part of the Windows Embedded family and served as the software foun ...

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

, and various

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

platforms, including

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

, AIX,

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is a proprietary software, proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise; current versions support HPE Integrity Servers, based on Intel's Itanium architect ...

and

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...

. Database files are independent of the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

, allowing them to be copied between supported platforms. The product provides several standard interfaces (

ODBC In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...

JDBC Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is an application programming interface (API) for the Java (programming language), Java programming language which defines how a client may access a database. It is a Java-based data access technology used for Java ...

, and ADO.NET) and a number of special interfaces such as

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

and

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

. The engine supports

stored procedure A stored procedure (also termed prc, proc, storp, sproc, StoPro, StoredProc, StoreProc, sp, or SP) is a subroutine available to applications that access a relational database management system (RDBMS). Such procedures are stored in the database d ...

s, user functions (using Watcom SQL, T-SQL,

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, or C/ C++), triggers,

referential integrity Referential integrity is a property of data stating that all its references are valid. In the context of relational databases, it requires that if a value of one attribute (column) of a relation (table) references a value of another attribute (e ...

, row-level locking, replication,

high availability High availability (HA) is a characteristic of a system that aims to ensure an agreed level of operational performance, usually uptime, for a higher than normal period. There is now more dependence on these systems as a result of modernization ...

, proxy tables, and events (scheduled and system events). Strong encryption is supported for both database files and client-server communication.

Uses

SQL Anywhere is used in several contexts, including as an embedded database, particularly as an application data store. For example, it is used in

Intuit Intuit Inc. is an American multinational business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparati ...

QuickBooks QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. First introduced in 1992, QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as ...

, in network management products, and in backup products. Its ability to be used with minimal administration is a distinguishing feature in this role. It can be used as a

database server A database server is a server which uses a database application that provides database services to other computer programs or to computers, as defined by the client–server model. Database management systems (DBMSs) frequently provide database- ...

for work groups or for small or medium-sized businesses. It can also function as a

mobile database Mobile computing devices (e.g., smartphones and Personal digital assistant, PDAs) store and share data over a mobile network, or access a database which is actually stored by the mobile device. This could be a list of contacts, price information, di ...

. It includes scalable

data synchronization Data synchronization is the process of establishing consistency between source and target data stores, and the continuous harmonization of the data over time. It is fundamental to a wide variety of applications, including file synchronization a ...

technology that provides change-based replication between separate databases, including large server-based RDBMS systems.

Technologies

SQL Anywhere Server is a high performing and embeddable relational database-management system (

RDBMS A relational database (RDB) is a database based on the relational model of data, as proposed by E. F. Codd in 1970. A Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) is a type of database management system that stores data in a structured forma ...

) that scales from thousands of users in server environments down to desktop and mobile applications used in widely deployed, zero-administration environments. ''Ultralite'': UltraLite is a database-management system designed for small-footprint mobile devices such as PDAs and smart phones. ''Mobilink'': MobiLink is a highly-scalable, session-based synchronization technology for exchanging data among relational databases and other non-relational data sources. ''QAnywhere'': QAnywhere facilitates the development of robust and secure store-and-forward mobile messaging applications. ''SQL Remote'': SQL Remote technology is based on a store and forward architecture that allows occasionally connected users to synchronize data between SQL Anywhere databases using a file or message transfer mechanism.

History

* Initially created by

Watcom Watcom International Corporation was a software company, which was founded in 1981 by Wes Graham and Ian McPhee. Founding staff (Fred Crigger, Jack Schueler and McPhee) were formerly members of Professor Graham's Computer Systems Group at the Uni ...

as Watcom SQL. * Version 3: 1992 * Watcom acquired by Powersoft in 1993; Watcom SQL shipped with their visual programming environment

* Version 4: 1994 (

Stored procedure A stored procedure (also termed prc, proc, storp, sproc, StoPro, StoredProc, StoreProc, sp, or SP) is a subroutine available to applications that access a relational database management system (RDBMS). Such procedures are stored in the database d ...

s, triggers) * PowerSoft and

merged in 1995: Watcom SQL was renamed SQL Anywhere. * Version 5: 1995 (SQL Remote

data replication Replication in computing refers to maintaining multiple copies of data, processes, or resources to ensure consistency across redundant components. This fundamental technique spans databases, file systems, and distributed systems, serving to impro ...

; graphical administration tools) * Version 6: 1998. Renamed Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA). (multi-processor support, Java objects in the database) * Version 6.0.2: 1999 ( MobiLink

, UltraLite mobile database for

Palm OS Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS) is a discontinued mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants (PDAs) in 1996. Palm OS was designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. ...

and

) * Version 7: 2000 (dynamic cache, task scheduling and event handling, cross-platform administration tools) * Version 8: 2001 (Volcano

query optimizer Query optimization is a feature of many relational database management systems and other databases such as NoSQL and graph databases. The query optimizer attempts to determine the most efficient way to execute a given query by considering the pos ...

, encrypted data storage and transmission) * Version 9: 2003 (

Index Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on the Halo Array in the ...

consultant, embedded HTTP server) * Version 10: 2006 – renamed SQL Anywhere (

, intra-query parallelism,

materialized view In computing, a materialized view is a database object that contains the results of a query. For example, it may be a local copy of data located remotely, or may be a subset of the rows and/or columns of a table or join result, or may be a summa ...

s) * Version 11: 2008 (full text search,

BlackBerry BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

support) * Version 12: 2010 released by SAP Sybase (support for

spatial data Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also ca ...

) * Version 16: April 18, 2013 – (faster synchronization and improved security) * Version 17: July 15, 2015; released by SAP

References

{{reflist

External links

SQL Anywhere official product page
Proprietary database management systems Relational database management systems