Frequently Asked Questions

What Are the Database Specifications?
For a detailed description please review the database overview.

See some lecture slides from recent talks given at Brown University regarding the Backplane, Inc database architecture.

Who Developed the Backplane Database?
Matthew Dillon, Co-Founder and Principal Engineer, Backplane, Inc.

A lifelong adherent to open standards and open source technology development, Matthew Dillon has been closely involved with the development of the FreeBSD operating system over the past decade. Recent releases of FreeBSD have incorporated Matt's work in the areas of the VM system (virtual memory), security, compression algorithms and others. Matt has written several relational databases in the past 10 years.

In 1994, Matt co-founded Best Internet, one of the first ISPs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Other ISPs not utilizing open source standards could not adapt their technology quickly enough to support the new business processes their rapid growth suddenly required. Best was purchased by Verio and eventually acquired by NTT DoCoMo, Japan.

Read an Interview with Matt on OSnews.com.

Read an article by Matt about Virtual Memory on DaemonNews.org.

Read an article by Matt about Security on DaemonNews.org.

What's unique about the Backplane database?
Backplane is the only open-source, transactional, truly distributed database. Designed to run on a larger number of small servers (rather than a smaller number of large servers), it is possible to spread the database nodes widely, requiring database operation to work efficiently over WAN latencies while maintaining full transactional coherency across the entire replication group.

A fundamental innovation of this open source database core is its quorum-based replication, providing unique advantages in many areas, including fast, low-cost maintenance and near realtime backups.

How Scalable Is the Database?
It is incredibly easy to increase database size. The Backplane database automatically synchronizes newly added servers with the realtime database once they are connected to the Internet and powered on.

On which platforms does the Backplane database run?
Backplane runs on Debian Linux v2.2.20 and FreeBSD versions 4.x and above.

Are There Any Employment Opportunities at Backplane?
There is currently one open position developing a PHP / Apache module for the Backplane database. If you are interested, please email us a resume and cover letter at info@backplane.com.

Licensing Information

Please read the licensing details to learn about licensing the Backplane Open Source Database.