InterBase

InterBase is a relational database management system (RDBMS) currently developed and marketed by Embarcadero Technologies. InterBase is distinguished from other RDBMSs by its small footprint, close to zero administration requirements, and multi-generational architecture. InterBase runs on the Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris operating systems as well as iOS and Android.

In many respects, InterBase is quite conventional; it is a SQL-92-compliant relational database and supports standard interfaces such as JDBC, ODBC, and ADO.NET. However, certain technical features distinguish InterBase from other products.

A full InterBase 2009 server installation requires around 40 MB on disk. This is significantly smaller than the client installation of many competing database servers. The server uses very little memory when idle. A minimum InterBase client install requires about 400 KB of disk space.

InterBase offers the option to run as an embedded database or regular server.

InterBase servers typically do not require full-time database administrators.

Since InterBase XE, InterBase includes 256bit AES strength encryption that offers full database, table or column data encryption. This assist data controllers conform with data protection laws around at-rest data by providing separated encryption / db access to the database and ensuring the database file is encrypted wherever it resides. The separation of the encryption also enables developers to just develop the application rather than worry about the data visible from a specific user login.

Consider a simple banking application where two users have access to the funds in a particular account. Bob reads the account and finds there is 1000 dollars in it, so he withdraws 500. Jane reads the same account before Bob has changed it, sees 1000 dollars, and withdraws 800. The account should be 300 dollars overdrawn, however, depending on which transaction gets processed first it will contain either 500 or 200 dollars. This poses a serious problem and needless to say, any database system with multi-user access needs some sort of system to deal with these scenarios.