An experimental object-based sharing system for networked databases

Abstract.

An approach and mechanism for the transparent sharing of objects in an environment of interconnected (networked), autonomous database systems is presented. An experimental prototype system has been designed and implemented, and an analysis of its performance conducted. Previous approaches to sharing in this environment typically rely on the use of a global, integrated conceptual database schema; users and applications must pose queries at this new level of abstraction to access remote information. By contrast, our approach provides a mechanism that allows users to import remote objects directly into their local database transparently; access to remote objects is virtually the same as access to local objects. The experimental prototype system that has been designed and implemented is based on the Iris and Omega object-based database management systems; this system supports the sharing of data and meta-data objects (information units) as well as units of behavior. The results of experiments conducted to evaluate the performance of our mechanism demonstrate the feasibility of database transparent object sharing in a federated environment, and provide insight into the performance overhead and tradeoffs involved.