Database Structures, Languages, and Architectures - Research Paper Example

Pros and Cons of ODBMS and RDBMS Pros and Cons of ODBMS and RDBMS Introduction The term ‘data’ has great relevance in the modern world. Every field of life values its importance; from medicine to business, education to tourism. However, data does not possess much relevance if it is not managed in an effective manner. Database management systems perform management functions pertaining to data and enable the users to create and maintain the data according to the needs of the business. The centralization of data promotes consistency and reduces redundancy.

Kambalyal (n.d.) defined the overall architecture and the linkage of data in the following manner; the client functionalities are stored at the client’s side, business application logic is available in the application server and the data is saved in the database server. It is called the client/server 3-tier model. The following figure shows a graphical representation of the relation between client, business and application logic and data. Figure 1: 3 tier model (Kambalyal, n.d.) Scholl (2004) stated that the functionalities of DBMS are implemented in a layered structure.

There are several types of database management systems; relational DBMS and object oriented DBMS are two of the common ones. 2. Relational DBMS Relational database model contains all data in the form of tables and relations. The relational database is considered to be an accumulation of tables, where each table consists of rows and columns of data. Different tables are related to each other on the basis of some common attribute and n-ary relations are maintained between the tables. The information in the tables is independent of any changes that might be made within some rows and columns i.e. they can be rearranged at any time.

Relational database models facilitate the creation of consistent and logical representation of data. 3. Object Oriented DBMS An object oriented database management system (OODBMS) is defined as the database that is based on object oriented concepts. There are four important concepts of object oriented designs namely, inheritance, data encapsulation, object identity and polymorphism. Data is represented in the form of objects in an OODBMS. Object oriented programming languages determine the relations between the objects and provide it the shape of an object oriented database.

Designers can translate real life things and concepts into objects by defining their structure and behavior. 4. Pros and Cons of OODBMS and RDBMS RDBMS offers flexibility in extracting results from the data. eDominer Systems (2006) stated that ad hoc queries can be executed on new tables that are created as a result of joining two defined tables. There is no concept of any ad hoc queries since there is no feature of executing join functions on classes. The queries and results are totally dependent on the object oriented design of the database.

eDominer Systems (2006) explained that RDBMS works equally well with large data, even if the data accumulates to terabytes of information. OODBMS does not perform well in the presence of an extensive data. The schema operations of create, update and delete are not dependent on the application. Objectivity Inc. (2005) pointed out that a change in any class brings about a change in all the classes that interact with the object of that class. This will result in an extensive recompilation of the whole application.

It is more difficult to translate tables into real life objects. Borysowich (2008) stated that the objects that are created in the object oriented database application are much closer to the things and concepts found in real life. Due to the lack of behavior (methods) of schemas, complex objects are not defined in an effective manner. Borysowich (2008) stated that complex objects can be created and handled more effectively. Coupling proves to be a challenging task in RDBMS. Cohesion and coupling can be presented efficiently thus bringing about more flexibility and maintainability, where coupling is defined as the degree of reliance of a program module on other modules.

Cohesion is a concept that is considered opposite to coupling. 5. Recommendation Object oriented database management systems are recommended for businesses since complex objects can be handled more efficiently than relational database management systems. Nowadays, companies tend to have complex data types like graphs, images and video, such data types can be handled effectively by OODBMS. OODBMS can offer faster access to data since join of tables is not involved; rather data is accessed by pointers and instances of classes.

Faster access of data can improve the productivity of any business by reducing delays in the execution of the tasks. Another database management system that is being widely accepted by enterprises is object relational database management system (ORDBMS). ORDBMS tends to provide middle way between ODBMS and RDBMS by presenting an interface of information in the form of objects, whereas, the information is converted into data tables at the backend where it is handled like a relational database.

References Borysowich, C., (2008), Some Pros & Cons of Object Databases, ToolBox, Retrieved from: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/enterprise-solutions/some-pros-cons-of-object-databases- 24145 eDominer Systems, (2006), RDBMS vs. OODBMS , Retrieved from: http://www.edominer.com/downloads/whitepapers/RDBMS_vs_OODBMS.pdf Kambalyal, C., (n.d.), 3-Tier Architecture, Retrieved from: http://channukambalyal.tripod.com/NTierArchitecture.pdf Objectivity Inc., (2005), Hitting the Relational Wall, Retrieved from: http://www.

objectivity.com/pages/downloads/whitepaper/pdf/RelationalWall.pdf Scholl, M., H., (2004), Architecture and Implementation of Database Management Systems, University of Konstanz, Retrieved from: http://www.inf.uni- onstanz.de/dbis/teaching/ss04/architektur-von-dbms/M1.pdf