CA Releases Open-Source DatabaseCA Releases Open-Source Database

Computer Associates on Monday will take the next step in its open-source strategy with the announcement of general availability of its Ingres r3 database for both Linux and Windows.

CA first tipped its plans to open-source Ingres at its user conference in May. The source code was published in August, as was a million-dollar developer's challenge to drum up support for the database. CA has also said it plans to make the database available on several other operating systems later this year and in 2005.

"We have customers who will now go into production with product for both Linux and Windows," says Tony Gaughan, senior VP of development at CA. "We believe that no one else has come close to releasing as significant a product as Ingres to the open-source community," he says. "We've now reached a level of stability with a significant number of pilots that are ready for production."

The database was acquired by CA from Ask Computer Systems Inc. about a decade ago but had dwindled in usage over the past few years. CA believes it can be revived within an open-source strategy.

Since Ingres r3 was first made available on Linux at Linux World in August, the company has seen more than 15,000 downloads of the product, Gaughan said. That number is now expected to grow even more rapidly with its availability on Windows, he says.

Ingres will be made available on 32- and 64-bit versions of Sun Solaris, HP/UX, and IBM AIX, along with Hewlett-Packard's Tru64 and OpenVMS, by early 2005, Gaughan says.

In addition, CA on Monday will reveal the general availability of its Wireless Site Management 4.0, which has been tested by about 20 companies since May. The product provides automated configuration, monitoring, and encryption of wireless local area networks in enterprise applications. It's priced at $15,000 for the manager and 100 agents, with additional agents priced at $1,500 per 100.