Gemstone Database Management System

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**Gemstone Database Management System**
Paradigm:	Application framework
Appeared in:	1991
Influenced by:	Smalltalk,Object-oriented programming
Influenced:	J2EE

Gemstone is a proprietary application framework that was first available for Smalltalk as an object database.

Gemstone's owners pioneered implementing distributed computing in business systems. Many information system features now associated with J2EE were implemented earlier in Gemstone.

Gemstone and VisualWave were an early web application server platform (VisualWave and VisualWorks are now owned by Cincom.)

Gemstone played an important sponsorship role in the Smalltalk Industry Council at the time when IBM was backing VisualAge Smalltalk (VA is now at Instantiations.

After a major transition, Gemstone for Smalltalk continues as Gemstone/S and various C++ and Java products for scalable, multi-tier distributed systems. Gemstone Systems, Inc. now develops and markets GemFire, which is notable for CEP (complex event processing), Event Stream Processing, data virtualization and distributed caching.

Just as Smalltalk continues to be a competitive advantage in many major financial institutions such as JP Morgan although not often mentioned in print, Gemstone systems continue as mission-critical applications even though many computing industry business publications focus attention on java (Java (programming language)) or C# (C Sharp) for Microsoft .NET for new development. Gemstone frameworks remain of interest for web services and service-oriented architectures.

A recent revival of interest in Smalltalk has occurred as a result its use to successfully generate Javascript for top-rated e-commerce web pages or in web application frameworks such as the Seaside web framework, but systems based on object databases are not as common as those based on ORM or Object-relational mapping frameworks such as TopLink or new-comer Hibernate. In the area of web application frameworks, JBoss and BEA Systems are somewhat analogous to Gemstone.

[edit] External links

Gemstone home page.
ACM Digital Library link to PDF on Gemstone.
FAQ for Gemstone.

[edit] References

Facets from Gemstone and Java with some history on the over-pricing of Smalltalk and its continued use.
Intel business PDF on Gemstone GemFire for financial systems.
ACM PDF on Gemstone.
XFire or GemFire Enterprise Data Fabric on IBM BladeCenter Platform.
Byte on Visual Wave and Gemstone as an Internet Application Server.
Eclipse as the current dominant IDE and its history as relates to Smalltalk environments.
Gemstone recent reference to STIC (Smalltalk Industry Council).
JP Morgan use of Smalltalk.
data virtualization article.
distributed caching article.