CERN/IT/DB

Object / Object-Relational Database Management Systems

Brief History & OutlookJamie Shiers, IT-DB, CERN

CERN/IT/DB

Overview

Evolution of Object & Object-Relational DBMS

Status of Market today

Outlook

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DefinitionsFrom Stonebraker: Object-Relational DBMSs: The Next Great Wave

Filesystems: no query RDBMS: query, simple data ODBMS: no (poor) query,

complex data ORDBMS: query & complex

• (Picture Akmal Chaudri)

CERN/IT/DB

RDBMS

E.F.Codd: “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks”, CACM 13, 6 (June 1970) pp 377 – 387 See http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/db/aboutdbs/papers/SRC-1997-018.pdf

Led to numerous commercial products: Oracle, SQL/DS, DB-2, SYBASE, Informix, MS SQLServer, etc.

In use at CERN since early 1980s…

Oracle Users Guide – V2.3

Relational S/W Inc.

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ODBMS

Started ~late 1980s in research projects

Altaïr O2, Objectivity/DB, Ontos, … Target markets (Cattell): CAD,

CASE, CAP, Scientific/Medical, AI, etc.

Object-Oriented DB Manifesto: “An OO DBMS must satisfy 2 criteria:

1. It should be a DBMS2. It should be object-oriented”

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ODBMS Speculation

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ODBMS RealityMarket much smaller than

predictedRationalisation

but less than in RDBMS market• O2 presumably now belongs to IBM!

What happened?

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Market

Numerous “dinosaur” analogies After all, IBM invented RDBMS technology and

only now(?) have a competitive RDBMS product

Can lightning strike twice / thrice?Predictions of ODBMS market: revised

down in 1998 timeframe Original predictions (apparently) included

ORDBMS component In other words, $1-2B includes Oracle’s share

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Technology

ODBMS initially worked with Smalltalk, C++, CO2, … Mainstream?

Industry focus is now on Java, XML, …

The latter provided sufficient impetus for established vendors to enhance their products

See, for example, VLDB papers:

CERN/IT/DB

VLDB Papers1989: complex objects / object modeling1990: performance of OODBs

1999: XML; Extending SQL with user-defined data types O-O, What Have They Done to DB2?

2000: A Database Platform for BioinformaticsThe need for complex data models has now

moved mainstreamThe established vendors have seen it coming and

have reacted

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Impact on ODBMS

Down-turn of ODBMS market blamed on RDBMS announcements e.g. Oracle 8.0, 8i, …

Oracle 9i claims complete object support according to SQL-99 standard

C++ binding provides ODMG-like interface for C++ programmers with both navigational & associative access

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RDBMS + “object extensions” Can store ADTs “Methods” on server

Complex Data with Queries

$8B in 1996Likely to become

dominant DBMS technology

Complex DataPerformance,

scalabilityTight Language

Binding OQL - SQL3 query

subset

Growth similar to RDBMS in ’80s

~$1B market by 2001

ODBMS / RDBMS / ORDBMS

~$100M?

From 1999 RD45 Status report…

CERN/IT/DB Risk Analysis:Summary of Options

Evaluate C++ binding to e.g. ORACLE Add ESCROW clause to Objectivity contract Pursue possibility of source license Visit key Objectivity customers Produce new requirements list Estimate manpower to support Objy in house Estimate manpower for “clean-sheet”

solution Continue to monitor alternatives

The LCB agrees with the other suggested steps to mitigate risk, with the addition of trying to insure that user code in reconstruction and analysis programs is kept as standards compliant as possible.

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Espresso Preliminary results from the Espresso proof-of-concept

prototype suggest that a home-grown ODBMS focussing on HEP needs could be built with a reasonable amount of manpower, perhaps some 15 person-years in total. However, it is far from clear where even such a modest amount of manpower could come from, particularly in a period when the overall CERN manpower is shrinking. A certain amount of manpower could possibly be found within the collaborations and at external institutes. However, a core team responsible for the main developments would most likely have a significant impact on the viability of such a project. In the immediate future, there is essentially no manpower available beyond that to complete the performance and scalability tests and write an architectural document. In the longer term, a home-grown ODBMS remains a possible fallback solution, although the time to develop a full product suggests that this will no longer be true much later than 2002.

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Oracle C++ Binding

Numerous C++ wrappers to Oracle’s C interface exist

With Oracle 9i, a C++ binding, modelled on JDBC, comes with the product

Had this existed in 1995, history might well have been different…

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Oracle 9i studiesFocus of this workshop…

Well, today & tomorrow…Discussed at last July’s “RD45”

workshop As Oracle 8.2 – the number changed

but the features did not…During the Hoffmann Review of

LHC Computing…Activity “kicked off” after IT Eloise

meeting…

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Eloise Actions  The possibility of a joint project between

Oracle and CERN should be explored to allow participation in the Oracle 9i test with the goals of evaluating this product as a potential fallback solution and providing timely feedback on physics-style requirements. Non-staff human resources should be identified such that there is no impact on current production services for Oracle and Objectivity.