Emerging Database

Technologies and
Applications

Progression of Database Technology

1960s to Mid1970s
Network
Hierarchical

1970s to Mid-1980s

1980s to Early 1990s

Future

Relational

Database
Hardware

Mainframes

Mainframes
Minis
PCs

Merging data models with

knowledge representation
Hybrid models
Client-server configuration
Parallel processing
Optical memories

User
Interface

None

Query languages
Forms

Semantic
Object-oriented
Logic
Faster PCs
Workstations
Database machines
Back ends
Graphics
Menus
Query-by-forms

Procedural

Embedded query
languages

Standardized SQL
4GL
Logic programming

Reports

Report generators

Business graphics
Image output

Data Model

Program
Interface
Presentation
and Display

Processing

Processing
data

Multimedia
Natural languages
Speech input
Freehand text
Integrated database and
programming languages

Generalized presentation
managers
Distributed, heterogeneous
data and knowledge
processing with multimedia
information
Information and
Transaction processing Parallel database
transaction processing Knowledge processing management

Current Trends in
Technology
Distributed, heterogeneous
environments
Open systems
More functionality
Parallel database management

Next Generation of DBMSs

Active databases
Applications such as process control, power
distribution/generation, workflow control,
program trading, battle management, patient
monitoring are not well served by passive
DBMSs
conditions defined on states of the database
must be monitored and actions taken
active databases support condition
monitoring

Issues in Active Databases

Efficiency
a large set of rules need to be managed and
evaluated efficiently

Modes of rule execution

rules can be fired in an immediate, deferred,
or detached mode in regard to the original
transaction

Data model extension

specifying events, conditions, and actions
events:
database operations (insert, delete, modify)
temporal events (5 p.m. every day)
user- or application-generated events (hardware failure)

Issues in Active Databases

Management of rules
ability to manipulate rules (add/delete/modify)
mechanisms for enabling and disabling rules or
rule sets

Supporting DBMS functions

examples: constraint management, maintenance
of derived data, rule-based inferencing

Interaction with parts of DBMS

optimization of rules requires interaction with
transaction manager, object manager, and
scheduler

State of the Art in Active

Databases

HiPAC (High Performance ACtive database system) research

project at Xerox
PROBE for battle management application (Computer
Corporation of America)
Event/Trigger Mechanism (Univ. of Karlsruhe)
POSTGRES (Stonebraker, UC Berkeley)
Starburst project at IBM
Sybase supports simple triggers
InterBase does not impose most of the restrictions seen in
Sybase
ORACLE v. 7, INGRES, INFORMIX, etc. provide some degree
of rule and trigger support

Multimedia Databases
Applications:
documents and records management
knowledge dissemination
education and training
marketing, advertising, retailing, travel
real-time control and monitoring

Multimedia Databases
Multimedia IS are very complex; issues:
modeling, dealing with complex objects
design (conceptual, logical, physical) not researched
yet
storage on standard devices presents problems
retrieval opens up many issues
performance problem solving efforts are experimental

Databases (fixed data structure) versus

information retrieval (text) perspectives
Requirements of multimedia/hypermedia data
modeling and retrieval
query mechanism should have access to the links (?)

Multimedia Databases
Indexing of images
automatic object identification
manual indexing

Open problems in text retrieval

Multimedia information systems
promise to bring about a marriage of
the disciplines of information
retrieval and database management

Spatial Database
Management

The spatial semantics can be captured

by three common representations:
solid representation
the space is divided into pieces

boundary representation
the spatial characteristics are represented by
line segments or boundaries

abstract representation
relationships with spatial semantics, such as
ABOVE, NEAR, IS NEXT TO, BEHIND, are used
to associate entities

The PROBE project provided support

for spatial data

Temporal Database
Management
An one-dimensional case of spatial
information
Includes three types of support for time:
time points
time intervals
abstract relationships (before, after, during,
simultaneously, concurrently, ...)

The history aspect of databases is

important for project management, patient
histories, maintenance histories, etc.

Temporal Database
Management
A range of businesses (ex. finance, medical,
legal, manufacturing) can benefit from quick
access to historical and current data
Limitations of current databases:
data become valid at the time they are recorded; no
provision for distinguishing between transaction
time and valid time
no capability to preserve historical information

Until recently, inefficient storage capabilities

made the temporal database concept not
practical
WORM and compression technology made it
possible

Tuple Time Stamping

One proposed model is the Temporal Relational
Model
Attributes, relations are divided into time-varying and
non-time-varying
For time-varying relations, two timestamp attributes are
appended
SQL is extended into Temporal SQL (TSQL)

EmpNo

Salary

Position

Start time End time

33

20K

Typist

12

24

33

25K

Secretary

25

35

45

27K

Jr. Engineer

28

37

45

30K

Sr. Engineer

38

42

Open Problems
Reasoning with temporal information
Processing information over validtime and transaction-time databases
Mixing temporal processing with
active and deductive databases
Integrating temporal information
over heterogeneous environments

Extensible Database
Management
Building DBMSs out of DBMS parts
Assembling prewritten modules has
advantages:
rapid and economical development
technological improvements can quickly be
incorporated
proposed new algorithms can first be evaluated

Project GENESIS at the University of Texas

components of DBMS and interfaces among
them are defined
new DBMS can be configured within minutes
plug-compatible modules are defined for access
methods, query optimization, concurrency
control, recovery, ...

Extensible Database
Management
Project EXODUS at University of Wisconsin provides certain kernel facilities
including storage manager and type manager

type manager permits definition of hierarchies with

multiple inheritance
the storage object is a byte sequence of arbitrary size
buffer management, concurrency control, recovery
mechanisms are provided and can be modified
type-independent index structures can be selected
the language E, an C extension, adds the notion of
persistent objects
query processing includes query optimization and
evaluation
the DBI supplies the description of operators and
methods to implement them
the rule-based optimizer generates C source code
the EXODUS storage manager was used by several
vendors (incl. O2)

Full-Functionality Approach
Building DBMS with extensive
functionality
Providing a wide set of features
Projects PROBE and Starburst
active databases
PROBE provides spatial query processing

POSTGRES also combines OO and active

database capabilities with the relational
model

Unified Database
Management

Example of systems in this category is UniSQL

combines
power and ease of popular development tools
OO development
multimedia database integration

organization:
UniSQL/X provides C/S DBMS platform
UniSQL/M allows access to relational and prerelational
DBs
UniSQL/4GE Tools for dynamically generating applications
Visual Editor and Media Master allow for viewing and
editing of schemas and for sophisticated report
generation

the next generation of DBMSs is likely to be

patterned after the UniSQL

Thank You!