Falcons Alexander Petrovich

Falcons Alexander Petrovich

Biography

One of founders of RDTECH company, the expert of DBMS, one of pioneers in use of database management systems of Oracle in Russia.

"For the first time the relational model of the database and Oracle DBMS was tried in 1984 at two leading research institutes of the Soviet Union: at Institute of high energy physics and in the All-Russian Research Institute of system researches. Those years the Institute of high energy physics was the largest computer center in the Soviet Union in which the team of highly skilled programmers worked. In Protvino where IFVE was located, the most powerful accelerator of elementary particles in the world worked. Six times a year experiments during which huge information volumes which needed to be processed and stored collected were made. There was a question of the choice of DBMS", - it is told in the press release RDTECH of 2004 devoted to the 20 anniversary of presence of Oracle in the domestic market.

Group of programmers enthusiasts which future organizers and the staff of RDTECH-Yury company Saygin, Alexander Sokolov, Boris Filimonov entered, etc. - in 1984 the first began to work with Oracle DBMS. It was Oracle4 for VAX/VMS - a product illegal in those days, technical support and access to which source codes were absent. This version did not work with Russian even at the level of data therefore it was necessary to Russify it. Complete expansion of opportunities of Oracle in Russian, including naming of all objects became result of work of group of programmers. Also the documentation kit in Russian was prepared. The translation quality was so high that further for some clients this factor became DBMS defining when choosing.

As a result from IFVE Oracle it was selected by main system, having pressed the others. The initiative group of programmers was engaged in work on transfer of the old systems in IFVE under Oracle, development of new applications and also user training. Thanks to the Protvino pioneers Oracle began to extend over the country. To IFVE there came specialists from other scientific organizations, copied Oracle, took the Russified documentation from colleagues. The same year at the initiative of the staff of IFVE the user group of Oracle which main task was an information support was organized. Afterwards the group developed into Association of users of Oracle (APO) DBMS which president was Yury Saygin.

Death

On May 27, 2015 announced RDTECH that Alexander Sokolov died.

Farewell to it should take place on Friday, May 29, 2015, at 9:30 a.m. in the ritual center "Pamyat" (Protvino, Mira St., 5), reported RDTECH in the press service.

Sergey Misyura, the director of the Center of technical support RDTECH, so remembers Alexander Sokolov:

"He "made himself", having passed a way from the graduate of technical school to the candidate of science and from the system programmer to the head of laboratory in the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP). Alexander Petrovich was a fan of paradoxes. Liked to debate, calling in question, apparently, the firm truth, and in other words — dogmas. All of us at it learned much. Sasha is absent any more. The whole era in our life and in life of our company ended".