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Table of contents:

Object Oriented Database vs Relational Database

• Introduction
• The Wall: Where an RDBMS breaks down
• Programming Time and Cost
• Integrity Loss
• Performance
• Information Model Issues
• Architecture Issues
• Benchmark
• Benchmark Parameters
• Benchmark Execution
• Parts Creation
• Updates
• Deletes
• Selects
• Summary
• Examples
• Cimskil (Manufacturing)
• Exxon (Configuration and FEA)
• CERN (Data Gathering and Analysis)
• Decision•ism (Decision Supportware)
• QUALCOMM (Telecommunications)
• COM21 (Cable Modem)
• Nortel, Sprint (Cell Phone Base Station Management)
• Nousoft (Library Document Management, Web)
• Iridium (Telecommunications)
• BBN (Military Logistics and Control)
• Intraspect (Knowledge Management)
• Fisher-Rosemount (Manufacturing, Process Control)
• A Brief Overview of Our Development
• ODB Selection
• Introduction
• Performance
• Scalability
• Productivity
• Fault Tolerance
• Additional Features and Benefits
• Summary
• Kintetsu (Transportation, Logistics)
• Siemens (Process Control)
• SEH (Semiconductor Manufacturing)
• NEC (Semiconductor Manufacturing)
• American Meter (Process Control)
• Sloan Digital Sky Survey (Geographic Information System)
• LMS (Healthcare, Fetal Monitoring)
• Synthesis (Healthcare, Record Management)
• Daikin (Multi-Media CD-I Authoring)
• How to Avoid the Wall

Object Oriented Database vs Relational Database

Siemens
(Process Control)

Landis & Staefa, with worldwide headquarters in Switzerland, is a leading provider of environmental control systems. These are used to control heating, air conditioning, air flowing, power and lighting at the world's busiest airport, Chicago's O'Hare, John Hancock building, the new Chicago Stadium, as well as (high reliability) hospital suites, campus industrial environments, and multi-campus distributed environments, and pharmaceutical manufacturing environments.

Their Insight product, based on Objectivity/DB, is a multimachine, multiuser system used to control and monitor HVAC applications. Graphical monitors show conditions ranging from a temperature variance of a degree up to a fire, with the ability to archive and query history. They store configuration data about the system, and in some cases historical data to be used for later analysis. Key requirements include reliability (e.g., hospitals), flexibility (needs change over time), and scalability (uses grow to very large size in terms of users, number of systems controlled, and information size).

Distributed Control System

The DBMS must be reliable, accurate, flexible, and protect their investment. This last is biggest. After installation, one cannot easily come back later and change a building environment control system. Users need to know that it will always be upgradeable. They can preserve investment in equipment, installation, and training/personnel, which is also important. With an ODBMS, when they add on, they can extend the system — it won't be out of date. They found these to be well supported by the ODBMS.

Other technical DBMS requirements include performance, ease of modification, complex data types, support C++ and NT, multi-platform, shorten development cycle from 32 to 18 mo. Objectivity/DB again met all these. The ODBMS helped with the last requirement (development time) because it is so close to C++ that time to come up to speed was very small, and it has a good toolset.

Architecture of their system is inherently distributed, as a trunk with multiple control stations (using the ODBMS) and proprietary network link to actual controllers. Distribution can be local or WAN, some several miles, some several hundreds of miles, the longest about 1000 miles. Objectivity/DB's support of a single logical view over such distributed environments, with fault tolerance and replication were key advantages.

Other evaluated DBMSs included other ODBMSs and a leading RDBMS with which they were already familiar. The others lacked distribution support, and missed functionality, including time series support as well as immediate-change support. In all cases it was required that the DBMS be open for customer access and extensibility. The SQL/ODBC support here was critical.