A small database consulting firm in Bellevue, Wash. is shipping a lightweight, modular database targeting metadata storage in digital media applications. ITTIA's "Compact DB" uses the same file formats and C/C++ API as the company's DB-SQL database, but can shed unneeded features to reduce device resource requirements, ITTIA says.

The new "Compact" DB appears to be a more modular version of the company's DB-SQL product. It is supplied as a library that developers can chop unneeded features out of.

For example, device software developers may wish to forgo DB-SQL's support for SQL, instead calling lower-level functions to access tables and indexes "directly," ITTIA says. Yet, if the device's data is sync'ed to a desktop application based on DB-SQL, it can still be queried using SQL in that context.

Another feature likely to prove unneeded in device software is "recovery logging," according to ITTIA. Portable digital media devices often cache media file metadata in a database to improve seek and search times, yet the metadata is updated only rarely, and so recovery logging -- a feature aimed at gracefully recovering from power failure -- is overkill. And, metadata can always be reconstructed from the actual files, the company points out.

DB-SQL is available with both Java and C/C++ bindings, but the more modular Compact version appears only to support the latter at this stage. It supports Linux, but is a "cross-platform" DB that can even be used on devices without OSes, according to the company. Additional details may be available on ITTIA's website, here.


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