ODBMS.ORG Portal Released
High-Profile Experts Help Meet Growing Demand for
Free Educational Resources on OO Database Technology
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sep. 15, 2005 – ODBMS.ORG, a vendor-independent, non-profit group of high-profile software experts lead by Prof. Roberto Zicari, today announced the launch of ODBMS.ORG (www.odbms.org), the Internet’s most up-to-date educational and research portal on object database technology. This initiative is the first of its kind in nearly two decades, since first-generation object-oriented databases emerged in the early 1990s and subsequently fell dormant.
The open source community has created a new wave of enthusiasm that’s now fueling the rapid growth of second-generation, native ODBMSs and demand for appropriate education. The new portal is designed to meet this fast-growing need for educational and research resources focusing on object database technology and the integration of object-oriented programming and databases.
“The ODBMS.ORG portal is a mission-critical resource for any serious 21st century software professional. It is indispensable, and a key element in promoting state-of-the-art software craftsmanship,” said ODBMS.ORG panel member Philippe Kahn, founding CEO of Borland and current CEO of Fullpower Technologies, Inc.
ODBMS Growth Boom
Object databases (ODBMS) have long been recognized as a solution to one of the biggest dilemmas in modern object-oriented programming (OOP): the object-relational (OR) impedance mismatch. Now that OOP languages like Java and .NET are finally becoming mainstream, this problem rests at the heart of information technology.
Thus object databases are increasingly established as a complement to (not a replacement for) relational databases for efficient resolution of the OR mismatch. ODBMSs are flourishing as embeddable persistence solutions in devices, on clients, in packaged software, in real-time control systems, and to power websites.
IDC’s Carl Olofson confirms: “Object-oriented DBMSs could well enjoy a second growth period as embedded DBMSs due to the efficient and flexible data management they offer object-oriented applications.”
Expert Resources
The ODBMS.ORG portal features open source software, lecture notes, tutorials, papers and other resources for free download. It is complemented by listings of relevant books and vendors to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of available resources on object database technology.
The portal’s Editor, Roberto Zicari, is Professor of Database and Information Systems at Frankfurt University and representative of the Object Management Group (OMG) in Europe. His interest in object databases dates back to his work at the IBM Research Center in Almaden, CA, in the mid ’80s, when he helped craft the definition of an extension of the relational data model to accommodate complex data structures. In 1989, he joined the design team of the Gip Altair project in Paris, later to become O2, one of the world’s first object database products.
The Expert Section contains exclusive contributions from internationally recognized experts including Scott Ambler, Michael Blaha, William Cook, and Carl Rosenberger.
Scott Ambler is a consultant with Ontario-based Ambysoft and thought-leader of the widely recognized Agile Modeling (AM), Agile Data (AD), and Enterprise Unified Process (EUP) methodologies. His newest paper, published exclusively on ODBMS.ORG, examines how object database technology fosters agile development (AD) through the ability of modern, native ODBMSs to absorb class model changes seamlessly by automatic schema evolution on behalf of the database.
William Cook, professor at the University of Texas, and Carl Rosenberger, chief software architect at db4objects, have contributed their ground-breaking joint paper on Native Queries (NQ), which discusses the use of programming languages like Java or .NET to express database queries that are 100% typesafe, 100% refactorable and 100% object-oriented. Native queries are poised to become the unifying standard for object-oriented queries in the same way that SQL has standardized the query interface for relational databases – replacing earlier, non-native attempts such as ODMG and JDO.
Michael Blaha, co-inventor of UML and co-author of the seminal book “Object-Oriented Modeling and Design with UML” (with James R. Rumbaugh), has contributed a new paper on “The Dilemma of Encapsulation Versus Query Optimization.”
Blaha states: “I thank Dr. Zicari for initiating the ODBMS portal. Object technology has become influential in many areas of computing, but is lagging a bit for databases. The ODBMS portal will be a helpful resource for practitioners in better combining object technology with databases.”
About ODBMS.ORG
ODBMS.ORG (www.odbms.org) is a vendor-independent, not-for-profit educational program on object database technology and the integration of object-oriented programming and databases. Designed by Prof. Roberto Zicari of Frankfurt University, the program’s goal is to promote and further the use of object databases – by offering free resources for students, faculty and researchers at universities and research centers, as well as for JAVA and .NET developers in the commercial and the open source world. Content is provided by a panel of internationally recognized experts, who share research articles and teaching materials with the community via the Web portal.
Press and analysts contact: editor@odbms.org