Object Oriented Databases Query by Traversal

Query by Traversal: A second kind of object retrieval is to traverse from one object to a related object. This kind of retrieval is really just a fetch from the database. Finding objects by traversal doesn't require an actual search, because they’re readily identifiable by their unique IDs, in this case Objectivity/DB OIDs.

SQL databases have no concept of a fetch by ID; any row must be queried by attribute. Objectivity/DB can retrieve an object by its OID, without any knowledge of its type, just by resolving the 64-bit address.