Shift toward three-tier DB architectures gets business logic off databases and onto application servers March 12, 1999 — Informix and Sybase are both lining up spring announcements that will make Java an important element in their signature databases. The plans signal a shift for the two vendors toward three-tier database architectures that allow business logic to be moved from databases onto application servers.Sybase officials have confirmed that this spring the company will introduce the next version of its enterprise edition database, Enterprise Server 12, with an embedded Java virtual machine (JVM). Combined with Sybase’s imminent news that it is teaming with Sun to develop enterprise applications for the Sybase SQL Anywhere Studio mobile database, the moves mark significant steps by the company toward unifying its database architecture around Java.Informix is also planning to move toward a Java-based approach in the next version of its flagship database, Dynamic Server. Code-named “Centaur” and expected to be available in June, the next version of Dynamic Server will, like the Sybase offering, include a built-in JVM. Developers will then be able to write Java applications to run on an application server sitting on top of a relational database. This will allow for a thin client, most likely a standard Web browser, at the front end of a three-tier architecture. The use of Java and the addition of an embedded JVM will allow customers to move business logic off of databases, offering greater scalability and load balancing for certain types of data. At the same time, tightly bound data will remain close to the core of the database where it is most effective.Oracle already offers an embedded JVM in its database architecture, so officials were not surprised by the news from the competition.“I’d be more surprised if they didn’t add a JVM,” said an Oracle representative. “We strongly believe that the scalability and performance benefits of Java make it the future of databases.” The moves by Informix and Sybase are seen as necessary in a market that is increasingly influenced by Internet commerce.“The biggest driver of database implementations today is i-commerce,” noted Frank Gillett, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, MA. Java