The Dev. Team here at PaperCut recently did a presentation about Apache Derby at the Australian Java User’s Group (AJUG) meeting in Melbourne. Apache Derby is the default database option supplied with PaperCut. Even thought we offer a choice of MS SQL Server, Oracle and Postgres within PaperCut, we find that 90% of our 10,000+ users stick with Derby. It’s a great choice for most of the medium to smaller sized organizations as it’s a self-managing database. This means that you as an administrator don’t have to get involved with traditional DBA management tasks such as off-line backups, indexing, and performance tuning. The application and embedded database handles this all for you!
Many will have heard about databases like Oracle or MySQL. Apache Derby however is a little more discreet. The reason for this is that it’s an embedded database. That is, it’s designed to be pre-packaged with applications as a library rather than being deployed as a separate standalone component. However just because it’s has a “low profile” doesn’t mean its not good. It our opinion it’s one of the best databases around. It’s performant, packaged full of features, and has a fantastic pedigree being born out of the database development teams at IBM, Informix and Sun. Apache Derby was open-sourced in 2005 when IBM donated it to the Apache Foundation. In now continues to be actively developed under the stewardship of the Apache Foundation along with many other world-class projects such as the Apache HTTP server.
If any are interested in knowing more about Apache Derby and its behind the scenes use in our print monitor application then please check out the slides from the presentation ( PDF or HTML ).
