Table of Contents - September 1995 Vol. 8 No. 10

Features

The New Workgroup Servers by Josh Price and Bharat Vijay
Trends such as corporate decentralization/downsizing and growth of small- to mid-size businesses have created a new opportunity for DBMS vendors. While the traditional battleground of RDBMS competition has focused on TPC benchmarks, server-side programming features, and scalability to support large volumes of data and users, new areas of competition are emerging in the workgroup space, such as database administration, distributed queries and transactions, and replication for remote and mobile systems. This article defines these areas, and examines the current offerings and future directions of several workgroup DBMS vendors, including Watcom, Gupta, Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, IBM, Btrieve, Informix, and CA.

Object-Oriented Data Modeling by George Tillmann
Object-oriented development differs from how we built systems in the past, and it puts some kinks in the logical data modeling techniques we discussed in the past four articles. Yet oddly enough, the knowledgeable logical data modeler is in a better position to understand and implement object-oriented concepts than any other system development professional. This article presents a brief overview of object-oriented modeling, and shows how it fits into the scheme of logical data modeling.

Adding Behaviors to RDBMSs by Don Burleson
Traditionally, "behaviors" have resided outside the database, usually embedded in an application program. While triggers and stored procedures have partially addressed this issue, they are not tightly associated with database entities (unlike true object-oriented systems). This article describes several techniques that developers can use to move behaviors into relational tables, enabling an object-oriented approach to data management.

Columns

From the Editor by David M. Kalman
(Fun with surveys, both paper- and Web-based.)

Data Warehouse Architect by Ralph Kimball
(Now that you've got all that data in your systems, how do you get information out?)

SQL Explorer by Joe Celko
(Traveling Joe predicts the future of Xbase, discusses news from Database World, and offers a new SQL puzzle.)

C/S Developer by David Linthicum
(Oracle's Designer/2000 and Developer/2000 suite offers one-stop shopping for Oracle developers.)

Desktop DBMS by Tom Spitzer
(Optimizing NetWare for database applications.)

Server Side by Josh Price and Bharat Vijay
(Developing for multiple back-end servers requires multiple personalities.)

Products

Hands-On Reviews Edited by Clara H. Parkes

SQLBase 6.0, Gupta Corp.'s major upgrade of its database server shows off a host of new features, including stored procedures, triggers, two-phase commit, and more.

Crystal Reports 4.0 and R&R Report Writer 6.0, two full-function products for report-hungry end users and developers.

Soft Notes, new client/server database products and upgrades.

Interview

Asymetrix Corp.'s Dr. Terry Halpin on object role modeling (ORM), a powerful database design methodology.

Coming Next Month

What's new in object-oriented database application development tools; financial reporting meets workflow; and the new technology of telephony.

Previous Tables of Contents for 1995: [April] [May] [June] [July] [August]

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Updated Wednesday, August 2, 1995