Object-relational database systems: Principles, products, and challenges

Object-relational database systems are emerging as the next major generation of commercial database system technology. Products from relational database management systems (DBMS) vendors including IBM, Informix, Oracle, UniSQL, and others, include object-relational features today and all of the major vendors appear to be on course to delivering full object-relational support in their products over the next few years. In addition, the sequential query languages (SQL3) standard is rapidly solidifying in this area. A tutorial has been presented which will explain what the key features are of object-relational database systems and where these systems are heading.