OODBMS, MDDBMS

Two emerging (emerged?) database technologies, and how they relate to Knowledge Management Sean Sullivan 100046263

Outline
 

Issues with RDBMS OODBMS



Benefits, drawbacks Benefits, drawbacks OLAP, MOLAP

MDDBMS
 

 

Summary Questions

Relational Databases
 

Have problems with redundancy Could normalize the data to create a star schema, but this breaks the object across multiple tables, and can introduce artificial keys Complex queries are difficult or sometimes impossible to write because SQL breaks the relational model Traditionally, could not represent files such as pictures, audio and video natively (only BLOB)

OODBMS: A Solution?
 

Started in the 1980s Integrates database capabilities with OO programming language capabilities Makes database objects appear as programming language objects in an existing language (such as JAVA, C++ or Smalltalk) Relational Model is no longer valid: objects are related through inheritance and polymorphism More of a persistent programming language than a DBMS

Why Object Oriented?

Benefits of OODBMS


Explicit relationships improve the data access performance (especially as the database and complexity of the relationships grow) when compared to value based relationships. Supports a large number of different types of data, relationships, and objects with complex behavior A good fit for Knowledge Management problems, which are inherently complex Found application in telecommunications, high energy physics and subsets of financial services

The drawbacks


No clear standard


(ODMG did come up with one, but it was not accepted by the major OODBMS vendors)

Lack of interoperability with traditional RDBMS tools (such as OLAP, backup and recovery, reporting, etc) Seen by some as a lost opportunity to revolutionize software and database development Today, there are more products that perform object-sql maping than there are pure OODBMS

Relational Database (revisited)

 

Represents data in a table Think of displaying this information in a spreadsheet Requires indexing and sorting which takes time SQL may not be able to get the information we need in a complex query

MDDBMS


Multidimensional data model emerged over the past 10-15 years MDDBMS is the Rubik's Cube of database management systems Focuses on analyzing the data, not recording transactions Data is categorized as either facts with numerical measures, or as dimensions that characterize the fact

Example
I decide to buy an AMD 64 3500+ processor from http://tigerdirect.ca  The purchase is a fact; the price and amount purchased are numerical measures  The type of product I bought, when I bought it, and where I bought it are all dimensions.

MDDBMS cont


Takes data from many sources, such as RDBMS, Legacy System, etc Data is physically stored on disk in a data structure that is highly optimized for multidimensional processing and fast retrieval Storage is between 2 and 10 times more efficient over RDBMS due to better indexing, compression and representation of sparse data

MDDBMS = (M)OLAP?
 

 

Similar, but not the same MDDBMS is a database, and evolves with time as new data trickles in OLAP is a snapshot Both provide a multidimensional view of the data MOLAP tends to generate faster queries and uses less space than ROLAP or HOLAP

Benefits


Queries are simply a request to see pre-existing data organized in a specific fashion. Already highly organized, so the requested data is removed and reorganized Stores information in the same way that it is viewed (less data management, and maintenance)

The drawbacks


Not the best solution for every problem Works only on information with interrelations Database explosion with large amounts of sparse data (calculating all relationships can increase the database size dramatically).

Summary


OODBMS has little to do with KM (in fact, there is just plan very little work being done in this field). MDDBMS are an important tool in KM, and, although are not perfect, will be around for a while

Links of Interest


Object persistence in Java: Java Data Objects (JDO) http://java.sun.com/products/jdo/ The OLAP Report http://www.olapreport.com/

References


  

Colliat, G. (1996). OLAP, relational, and multidimensional database systems ACM Press, 25(3), 64-69. http://wikkipedia.org http://olapreport.org http://cs.cmu.edu/People/clamen/O ODBMS/Manifesto/htManifesto/Mani festo.html

Any
Questions, comments, queries, concerns (or quotes)?