| This article is about a database system. For cache memory, see Cache.
Caché is a proprietary M technology-based database management system from InterSystems. InterSystems uses the term "postrelational" to describe its
characteristics. Caché provides SQL, Object and
multidimensional access to
the same data.
Caché runs on Windows, different flavors of Unix and OpenVMS platforms.
Internally Caché stores data in b-tree based multidimensional arrays (otherwise
known as MUMPS globals, although InterSystems prefers to avoid using the name MUMPS). In most applications, however, Object and/or
SQL access methods are used. Caché ObjectScript and Caché Basic can be used to develop
application's business logic. External interfaces include Native Object Binding for C++, Java, EJB, ActiveX. JDBC and ODBC for relational access as well as high-performance Direct interfaces. XML and Web Services are also supported.
The noticeable customers of this DBMS are top US hospitals, who run their EMR systems on
Caché, financial institutions like Ameritrade and others.
The main competitors are other high-end vendors such as DB2 from IBM, MS-SQL from Microsoft and Oracle.
In comparison to relational systems, in similar applications, Caché can often provide significantly higher performance (or can
support many more users with the same hardware resources). This is a characteristic it shares with other M technology-based systems. Sometimes the difference can be very dramatic. Against
this should be weighed some loss in flexibility compared to relational systems; personnel recruitment and training issues that
result from being outside of the current mainstream of database technology; and "lock-in" issues associated with the use of
proprietary tools available from only a single vendor.
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