Mumps is a relatively unknown non-relational database technology that is well-suited for internet-scale applications due to its scalability, low cost, simplicity, flexibility and high performance. It has been in production use for over 30 years supporting healthcare and financial systems. Mumps databases are schemaless and hierarchical, allowing them to easily scale and evolve without disruptive changes. Both proprietary and open source versions are available.

1. Mumps The Internet-scale Database Rob Tweed M/Gateway Developments Ltd & George James George James Software

2. Introduction What’s Mumps? A relatively little-known non-relational database technology Available in both proprietary and free, open source versions Why is it becoming interesting? Its core features perfectly meet today’s needs for Internet-scale databases It’s a tried and tested technology

3. Internet-scale database challenges Rapid growth and unpredictable demand Low cost Low maintenance Ultra-high reliability and resilience Flexibility Simplicity Ultra-high performance

4. Internet-scale database challenges Rapid growth and unpredictable demand Scale from no activity to sudden huge demand (Slashdot, Digg, TechCrunch) Disaster brought on by success Daily/seasonal spikes

5. Internet-scale database challenges Low cost At startup: No traffic, no revenue Uncertain future: Little traffic? Massive success? Proprietary databases are too expensive mySQL and Postgres have become the default choices If successful: Must be able to scale, but at low incremental cost Budgets are tight Ideally free and open source

6. Internet-scale database challenges Low maintenance Quick and simple to get started DBA resources are expensive Downtime for tuning: At best annoying At worst highly disruptive and costly Ideally fire up and forget! Photo: © Gerrit van Aaken CC-BY 2.0

7. Internet-scale database challenges Ultra-high reliability and resilience The Net works 24 x 7 So must your applications! Redundancy and replication Load balancing Hardware hot-swapping

8. Internet-scale database challenges Flexibility Impossible to design everything perfectly at the outset Requirements evolve and expand Database redesign: Must not be costly Must not be time-consuming Cannot be “painted into a corner” by your DBMS

9. Internet-scale database challenges Simplicity Less moving parts is always a better option Associated running costs Maintenance implications Reliability concerns Speed of development Initial (time to market) Ongoing (reactivity to market)

10. Internet-scale database challenges Ultra-high performance Massive potential concurrent users Maximum throughput Minimum hardware Capital/revenue costs Energy costs CO 2 emissions Costs of physical space

11. Does anything fit the bill?

12. Relational? Rapid growth and unpredictable demand Scalability at high end is generally recognised as problematic Low cost Proprietary RDBMS too costly Heavy hardware requirements Low maintenance DBA essential and retuning constantly required Ultra-high reliability and resilience At a cost! Flexibility RDBMS schemas are too rigid Getting the initial design wrong could be expensive or fatal Schema migration is impractical without downtime Simplicity Most RDBMS are complex beasts Ultra-high performance Perhaps, but only at eye-wateringly high cost The relational table model does not naturally fit much of the data on the Net

13. Alternatives? These demands have stimulated the emergence of “new kids on the block”: Amazon simpleDB couchDB objectKitchen strokeDB dovetailDB Poseidon Google BigTable

14. Tried and tested? Will these scale? Are they cost-effective at low and high scales? Are they robust, resilient and reliable enough? Will they allow automated recovery? Will they protect against database corruption if the service is disrupted?

15. Emerging features These alternatives all exhibit features that buck the established RDBMS trend: Schemaless and/or Hierarchical

16. Schemaless database benefits High-speed development No schema migration required Flexibility Agility = reactivity to market requirements Dynamic extension of database structures Reduced baggage = higher performance

17. Hierarchical database benefits Natural mapping to XML and JSON Easy to navigate Easy to code against Associated data is clustered naturally leading to high performance B-tree implementations derive extremely high performance Easy to partition across multiple devices

18. Why re-invent the wheel?

19. Mumps Tried and tested In production use for over 30 years across the world Has quietly and reliably underpinned healthcare and financial services Schemaless Hierarchical Proven high performance Proven reliabilty Two main implementations: GT.M (open source) Cach é (proprietary)

20. Mumps is Internet-scale Rapid growth and unpredictable demand Massively scalable Already meeting the needs of huge user-bases Low cost GT.M is free Exceptionally efficient use of hardware resources Low maintenance No DBA requirement and no need for constant tuning Non-stop, lights-out operation Ultra-high reliability and resilience Tried and tested to meet the demands of large healthcare and financial services organisations Flexibility Schemaless model = dynamic ongoing change without disruptive redesign and rebuilding Extremely fast development and maintenance Simplicity Hierarchical database model naturally fits the modern XML and JSON-oriented view of data Ultra-high performance Mumps systems are renowned for astonishing levels of performance and throughput 50% to 100% faster than many conventional databases Much less hardware = less cost, less CO 2

21. Mumps is freedom Dynamic free-form nature of the schemaless, hierarchical database Raw, flexible palette on which you can build your own value-added layers Unconstrained by the rigours of the relational model A natural fit for the hierarchical structures in XML and JSON

22. Mumps is open Interoperates and integrates with any other language Cach é Built-in connectors for Java, .Net and web services Built-in XML support GT.M M/Gateway’s MGWSI gateway provides integration with: PHP, Java, .Net, Ruby, Python, Perl web services and REST M/Gateway’s eXtc and EWD products provide XML and JSON support Also has its own built-in scripting language

23. Mumps is here GT.M http://www.fis-gtm.com Cach é http://www.intersystems.com Background information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS http://www.mgateway.com http://gradvs1.mgateway.com/download/extreme1.pdf http://www.georgejames.com

24. Mumps The tried-and-tested Internet-scale database