0. Overview
This paper covers the following topics:
What is Database Technology?
Why is it Important?
Which Application Areas?
What are the Relevant Technologies?
The ERCIM Competence
The Way Forward
1. What is Database Technology?
The essential feature of database technology is that it provides an INTERNAL
Representation (model) of the EXTERNAL world of interest. Examples are the
representation of a particular date/time/flight/aircraft in airline reservation
or of item code/item description/quantity on hand/reorder level/reorder
quantity in a stock control system.
The TECHNOLOGY involved is concerned primarily with maintaining the internal
representation consistent with external reality; this involves the results
of extensive R&D over the past 30 years in areas such as user requirements
analysis, data modelling, process modelling, data integrity, concurrency,
transactions, file organisation, indexing, rollback and recovery, persistent
programming, object-orientation, logic programming, deductive database systems,
active database systems... and in all these (and other) areas there remains
much to be done.
2. Why is it Important?
Business in much of world depends on database technology. For example:
Finance: the UK clearing banks have calculated that if their database systems
were removed it would take every person in UK working 24 hours per day 7
days per week to process all the financial transactions manually. The London
stock exchange relies on computer systems for recording buying and selling
of stock which happens very quickly and in large quantities. The amount
of money involved in these transactions is enormous.
Transport: The airlines all use online seat reservation systems and have
systems for scheduling aircraft, for building and maintaining timetables,
for handling the in-flight catering and for mechanical servicing of the
planes. Similar systems exist for rail, sea and road transport. They all
use database technology extensively.
Utilities: the major utilities (water, electricity, gas) all have generation
/ distribution systems based on database technology.
Resources: The mineral exploration / extraction companies, and governments
who regulate them (especially for oil exploration / extraction) have extensive
databases which have complex data structures (usually including GIS (geographical
information system) components.
Production engineering: from scheduling workflow through the production
lines of machines to stock control and order processing, database technology
underpins all activity in this area.
Environment: protection and control of the environment by government agencies
depends heavily on database systems with GIS facilities, together with databases
of toxic substances and clean-up recommendations.
Tourism: hotel systems and local tourist attractions information and booking
facilities rely on database systems, and the major package tour operators
have extensive databases for holiday planning and booking, together with
financial systems for payment and invoicing.
Leisure: the entertainment industry uses database systems extensively for
theatre, concert and cinema ticket bookings.
Culture: museums, art galleries, history exhibitions -all utilise database
technology (and especially multimedia database technology) for cataloguing
their collections and recording access to them.
Education: courses, materials, and assessment all rely heavily on database
technology in all sectors of education. Increasingly the linking of database
technology with hypermedia delivery systems allows courseware to be maintained
up-to-date and delivered to the consumer.
Healthcare: primary healthcare has long relied on database technology to
schedule hospital beds or appointments at clinics. The patient health record
has been the subject of intensive study (and R&D resources) over many
years because of its complexity of structure, content and media and also
because of the security and privacy issues. Epidemiology utilises database
technology to hold and organise key information from many patients in order
to allow statistical processing to detect trends and to alert medical practitioners
to possible epidemics. More recently, data mining techniques have been applied
to this area - relying again on database technology.
Government administration would be paralysed without database technology;
the collection of taxes and the payment of social security benefits depends
totally on database technology.
Retail: the major retail stores utilise database technology in stock control
and PoS (Point of Sale) systems. Modern retailers use advanced data mining
techniques to determine trends in sales and consumer preference to optimise
stock control, retail performance, customer convenience and profit.
The essential point is that database technology is a CORE TECHNOLOGY with
links to:
information management / processing
data analysis / statistics
data visualisation / presentation
multimedia and hypermedia
office and document systems
business processes, workflow, CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work)
But modern DB systems depend on an infrastructure of:
networks both LAN (local area network) and WAN (wide area network)
client-server computing architecture
skilled data analysis and DB design
skilled systems development method(s)
for them to be effective and therefore used in any sector of activity.
3. Which Application Areas?
From the programme of the workshop there is clearly interest in:
culture&scientific information
tourism
telemedicine
natural resources management
production engineering
all of which have been mentioned above as typical DB application areas.
There is not enough time in the presentation to describe in any detail how
DB technology is used in these application areas.
4. What Relevant Technologies?
Relational DBMS is the modern base technology for many business applications.
It offers flexibility and easy-to-use tools at the expense of ultimate performance.
More recently relational systems have started to extend their facilities
in the directions of information retrieval, object-orientation and deductive/active
systems leading to the so-called 'Extended Relational Systems'.
Information Retrieval Systems started with handling library catalogues and
extended to full free-text utilising inverted index technology with a lexicon
or thesaurus. Modern systems utilise some KBS (knowledge-based systems)
techniques to improve retrieval.
Object-Oriented DBMS started for engineering applications where objects
are complex, have versions and need to be treated as a complete entity.
OODBMSs share many of the OOPL features such as identity, inheritance, late
binding, overloading and overriding. OODBMSs have found favour in engineering
and office systems but have not yet been successful in traditional application
areas.
Deductive / Active DBMS have emerged over the last 20 years and combine
logic programming technology with database technology. This allows the database
itself to react to external events an to maintain dynamically its integrity
with respect to the real world.
5. The ERCIM Competence
Each Institute has a strong team in database technology, with its own national
projects backed by participation in EU projects. Each team has links to
academics (through teaching / research) and links to commerce / industry
(through projects and consultancy).
The groups in the ERCIM institutes formed EDRG, ERCIM Database Research
Group, in 1991. There have been 9 workshops to date, some joint projects
and we obtained an EU-funded network of excellence (HCM programme). EDRG
can put together approximately 200 quality DB researchers plus contacts
in academia and industry.
For further information on EDRG see: /activity/wg/EDRG/index.html
6. The Way Forward
It is hoped that this workshop will define the requirements for the way
forward: perhaps the requirement is for workshops to exchange experience
and to motivate the initiation of joint projects. There is clearly a need
to get to know teams and competencies on each side of the Mediterranean.
Hopefully joint projects can be initiated in order to demonstrate the effectiveness
of DB technology for the region.