Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Objectives At the completion of this subject students should be able to understand the principles of object-oriented database systems; develop substantial systems with OODB management systems; and select an appropriate OODBMS and develop an appropriate database schema for various applications.
Synopsis This subject aims to enable students to extend their understanding of database systems to encompass the next generation of database systems, and be able to evaluate object-oriented database storage managers. OODBMS and advanced applications; object-oriented data models (semantic extensions, objects, properties, classes, inheritance, encapsulation, comparison of various data models); object-oriented query languages (access to objects, methods, SQL-like language; query languages of some popular OODBMSs); versions in OODB systems (version management and CAD/CAM/CASE, ORION data model); evolution in OODB systems; authorisation in OODB systems; query processing and navigation on OO databases (query graphs and traversal of nodes, cost model); distributed objects management; indexing techniques in OODB systems (object identifiers, swizzling); storage managers for OODB systems (comparison of storage techniques for relational DBMS and OODBMSs, clustering techniques).
Assessment Examination (2 hours): 40% + Practical assignments: 40% + Research paper and presentation: 20%