OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASES - DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

Object-oriented database systems aim at meeting the data modeling, performance, cooperative design, and version management requirements of next-generation applications, such as CAD, CAM, CASE, hypermedia, and expert systems. These needs cannot be met with conventional database systems, which have been developed primarily for business and financial applications. Object-oriented database (OODB) systems represent the confluence of ideas from object-oriented programming languages and database management. The paper presents key features of OODB's, provides a taxonomy of approaches to OODB's, and discusses key OODB architectural and implementation issues, design alternatives, and tradeoffs. It provides a brief summary of a variety of OODB systems, both research prototypes and commercial systems. Finally, it discusses industry efforts to accelerate a consensus that can lead to standards in the OODB area.