Ldl notes

= ldl's items in development =

FIS Global GT.M
GT.M from FIS Global: documentation, download

GT.M is a MUMPS database engine that runs on a wide variety of platforms.

It is unique in that GT.M, on Linux is licensed under the AGPL3, which is the latest in a series of the GNU License and further described in wikipedia.

GT.M supports database replication and is very suitable for high availability production use.

InterSystems Caché
InterSystems is a highly proprietary licensed implementation of MUMPS.

Caché is suitable for high availabilty production use.

Hardware
This was written by me (Gus). It reflects my bias toward using IBM hardware. That is not to say that other vendors do not have good options. My bias is shown what it is, and feel free to interpolate the following comments as being essentially the same for non-IBM gear.

IBM P/Series (PowerPC)
Historically, IBM P/Series hardware is a proven solid option. As of 2013, P/Series is still a good option.

That said, the modern IBM X/Series equipment has many of the advanced features that until recently required either P/Series or Z/Series machines.

There are some key considerations that need addressing if you plan to use P/Series equipment for your deployment:
 * GT.M is not AGPL3 for AIX
 * AIX is a licensed (costs money)

Other Options
There may be other options worth considering, but as of Apr 2013, most of those options are either relics of the past looking for current employment (e.g. IBM A/Series or Z/Series or things like Itanium, etc).

As future technology is revealed, then we can reconsider those options.

Operating System
Bottom line: UNIX

There are several good options to consider. I recommend that you limit your options to Linux and IBM AIX.

At present, with consolidation of Sun under Oracle, and the limited presence of other UNIX options (e.g. HP, et al), there plenty of options just in the Linux space.

If you are wanting a FOSS (Free Open Source Software) stack, then stick with Linux. The primary reason for this is that GT.M is only AGPL3 on Linux.

If you are needing more power than the "X86" family has to offer, then IBM AIX is a good option, but GT.M is not freely available on that platform.

CentOS
For non-production systems, [| CentOS] is my preferred free (open source and dollars) version of Linux.

CentOS *is* Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) without the "branding". It is fully derived from the RHEL sources. It has the advantage of being, administratively, the same as RHEL. This means that any skills developed in CentOS are fully applicable to RHEL.

Oracle Linux
I have not yet tried Oracle Linux in a major way, but think that it is worthy of consideration for production use.

Like CentOS, Oracle Linux is "downstream" from RHEL, with the Red Hat branding being replaced by Oracle branding. Like CentOS, Oracle Linux also "follows" the RHEL model, so administratively, Oracle Linux is the same as CentOS and RHEL.

Options that I like about Oracle Linux include the fact that you can buy support for Oracle L