22 Mapping an Object-Oriented Design to an Object-Oriented Database

William Premerlani, General Electric Research & Development Center, and David Hentchel, Object Design Educational Services

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An object-oriented design provides a solid basis for the implementation of an object-oriented database application. One of the biggest issues in implementing an object-oriented design concerns storing of objects for shared use. The persistence mechanism is extremely important to the eventual usefulness of most applications. An object-oriented database can solve the application's data storage requirements without sacrificing the benefits inherent in an object-oriented design. This tutorial uses ObjectStore, a commercial object-oriented database, to show how the object model and functional models of a database design can be implemented in practice. It briefly reviews UML notation, the Object Database Management Group persistence model, and ObjectStore features. It then explores design and implementation in detail. Examples are shown mainly using ObjectStore's C++ programming interface, with ObjectStore's Java interface briefly discussed.

Attendees will learn how to map an object-oriented design of a database application to an object-oriented database implementation, using ObjectStore as an example.

Attendee Background: Attendees should understand basic object-oriented concepts. Familiarity with UML and C++ is useful, but not required. Familiarity with ObjectStore is not required. Attendees should be interested in developing object-oriented database applications.

William Premerlani received his Ph.D. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and is currently on the staff of the GE Research and Development Center. He is a coauthor of the OMT methodology and two popular text books, "Object-Oriented Modeling and Design," and "Object-Oriented Modeling and Design for Database Applications."

David Hentchel has M.A. degrees from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. He is the manager of education services for Object Design, responsible for development of object database training courses. Background includes over twenty years experience in the database industry, involved with database design, consulting and training for network, relational, and object databases.

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Mapping an Object-Oriented Design to an Object-Oriented Database

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