The Open Source Zone

Berkeley DB JE is a high performance, transactional storage engine written entirely in Java. Like the highly successful Berkeley DB product, Berkeley DB JE executes in the address space of the application, without the overhead of client/server communication. It stores data in the application's native format, so no runtime data translation is required. Berkeley DB JE supports full ACID transactions and recovery. It provides an easy-to-use interface, allowing programmers to store and retrieve information quickly, simply and reliably.

Berkeley DB JE was designed from the ground up in Java. It takes full advantage of the Java environment. The Berkeley DB JE API provides a Java Collections-style interface, as well as a programmatic interface similar to the Berkeley DB API. The architecture of Berkeley DB JE supports high performance and concurrency for both read-intensive and write-intensive workloads.

Berkeley DB JE is different from all other Java databases available today. Berkeley DB JE is not a relational engine built in Java. It is a Berkeley DB-style embedded store, with an interface designed for programmers, not DBAs. Berkeley DB JE's architecture employs a log-based, no-overwrite storage system, enabling high concurrency and speed while providing ACID transactions and record-level locking. Berkeley DB JE efficiently caches most commonly used data in memory, without exceeding application-specified limits. In this way Berkeley DB JE works with an application to use available JVM resources while providing access to very large data sets.

J2EE is a central part of many enterprise deployments of Java. Berkeley DB JE fits into the J2EE architecture by implementing three key APIs within J2EE. At its core, Berkeley DB JE is a transactional database. Within a J2EE application server, many different subsystems must coordinate and work together in a transactional manner. By implementing the Java Transaction API (JTA), Berkeley DB JE functions as a managed transactional resource within the application server. Berkeley DB JE also implements the J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) to ease integration into application servers. Finally, once integrated and performing transactional operations, most applications will require some ability to manage a service. Berkeley DB JE exports information and services using the Java Management Extensions (JMX). In concert JTA, JCA and JMX allow Berkeley DB JE to operate to its fullest and in a predictable manner in J2EE-based solutions.

The Berkeley DB JE architecture provides an underlying storage layer for any Java application requiring high performance, transactional integrity and recoverability.