Celebrating 20 Years of ODBMS.org: Charting the Evolution of Data

THIS September marks a momentous occasion—we are celebrating 20 years of ODBMS.org and our influential ODBMS Industry Watch Blog. Two decades is an eternity in the technology world, and this milestone is a testament to the enduring curiosity and engagement of you, our dedicated community of readers, contributors, and industry experts. Thank you for making this journey possible.

For two decades, our mission has been to provide trusted resources for navigating the complex and ever-evolving world of data management. We’ve witnessed paradigm shifts, the rise and fall of trends, and the incredible innovation that continues to shape our digital lives.

From Core Principles to the AI Frontier

Our scope has grown in lockstep with the industry itself. Today, ODBMS.org is a vital resource for understanding the entire data ecosystem. We remain committed to providing high-quality content, but our focus has expanded to embrace the most transformative technologies of our time.

We are proud to feature cutting-edge content on:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI: Exploring the data foundations, architectures, and database technologies that are powering the AI revolution.
• Modern Data Platforms: Covering the complex stacks that enable data-driven enterprises.
• A Spectrum of Databases: We continue our comprehensive coverage across all database models, including relational, NoSQL, vector, key-value, graph, time-series, and more, ensuring you have the insights to choose the right tool for the job.

The Voices of the Industry: Unrivaled Insights

A core pillar of ODBMS.org has always been to bring you insights directly from the source. We believe that the best people to explain a technology are the brilliant minds who build and shape it.

• Interviews on the ODBMS Industry Watch Blog: Our blog is home to some of the most in-depth and candid interviews with the founders, CEOs, and visionaries behind leading data companies. Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of featuring conversations with industry giants and technology pioneers such as Philippe Kahn, Vinton Cerf, Jimmy Wales, Bjarne Stroustrup, and Alan Kay, to name just a few. These conversations cut through the marketing hype to reveal the true challenges and opportunities in the industry.
• Expert Q&As on ODBMS.org: Our signature Q&A series provides a platform for industry experts to share their unfiltered knowledge on specific technologies and trends. These pieces serve as invaluable educational resources, offering practical advice and deep technical dives.

Looking to the Future

As we celebrate the last 20 years, our eyes are firmly on the future. The pace of innovation in data management is only accelerating, and our commitment to providing clear, authoritative, and high-quality content is stronger than ever.

ODBMS.org is proud to offer its free resources, a sustained service made possible by the continuous and generous support of our sponsors over the years.

We are incredibly grateful for your readership, your contributions, and your trust over the past two decades. We look forward to continuing this journey with you as we explore the next chapter of data innovation together.

Here’s to another 20 years!

The Editor.

Roberto V. Zicari is an affiliated professor at the Yrkeshögskolan Arcada, Helsinki, Finland, adjunct professor at the Seoul National University, South Korea, and Visiting Fellow, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
Roberto V. Zicari is leading a team of international experts who defined an assessment process for Trustworthy AI, called Z-Inspection®.
Previously he was professor of Database and Information Systems (DBIS) at the Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, where he founded the Frankfurt Big Data Lab. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of Databases and Big Data. His interests also expand to Ethics and AI, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

He was for several years a visiting professor with the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology within the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at UC Berkeley (USA).

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A 20-Year Legacy: Industry and Academic Leaders Reflect on the Impact of ODBMS.org

“Congratulations on a great milestone!!”

— Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.

“That is an amazing accomplishment. I have been following you and ODBMS.org for most of that time, really enjoy the content.”

— Cory Isaacson, CEO, reThought Insurance.

“Congratulations to ODBMS.org on reaching this incredible 20-year milestone. For two decades, ODBMS.org has been a beacon of insight and a catalyst for progress in the data management community. It has anticipated the evolution of technology—guiding us from foundational database principles to the new era of artificial intelligence and modern data platforms. Having walked this journey alongside ODBMS.org, I have witnessed firsthand its unwavering commitment to clarity, innovation, and excellence. Here’s to ODBMS.org—an indispensable resource that continues to inspire, educate, and unite the data-driven world. The next chapter in data management will be written with ODBMS.org leading the way. It has been a joyous time supporting ODBMS.org initiatives over the last 2 decades. ”

— Ramesh (CV) Chitor, SVP, Global Partnerships, Mondee AI Labs.

“I want to congratulate my friend Roberto V. Zicari on the 20th anniversary of ODBMS.org. I have known Prof. Zicari since my days as a student and during my tenure at HP Labs from 1989 to 1990. His newsletter and blog are a rich source of information about everything data – AI, GenAI, big data, SQL, NoSQL, In-memory databases, cloud databases and all such things. His work is a perfect blend of academics and industry, and his platform is very insightful and worth reading. Roberto V. Zicari, saluting your persistence!”

— Anand Deshpande, Founder and Chairman of Persistent Systems

” For years, ODBMS.org has published interviews with leading technologists across a variety of disciplines as well as articles written by experts from research, the open source community, commercial vendors, and IT consumers. I’ve enjoyed the depth and breadth of coverage, and I wish Roberto Zicari continued success with this portal.”

— Cynthia Saracco, Consultant, information management and analytics.

“Congratulations on your perseverance and the meaningful contributions you’ve made to the community.”

— Prof. Dr. Florian Matthes, Technical University of Munich (TUM)

” Congratulations Roberto on the success of ODBMS.org that represents significant contributions to the community. 20 years represents a lot of work on your part and reflects the changes in what is currently the most topical research. Thank you for all your efforts”
—Michael Brodie, DASlab, Harvard University​

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The History of ODBMS.org

Dear Visitor!

The idea of this Web portal originated during a meeting I had with Christof Wittig of db4objects in June 2005. Christof asked me if I was interested to create an Educational Program to help promoting and further use of object databases for the researchers and developers communities.

I was intrigued by this idea. My interest in Object Technology in general and Object Databases in particular is rooted back in the mid 80s. First at IBM Research Center in Almaden , San Jose in 1985 and 1986 , where I worked with colleagues at the definition of an extension of the relational data model to accommodate complex data structures, and then starting in 1989 for a few years where I had the privilege to join in the design team of the Gip Altair project in Paris later to become O2, producer of one of the first object database product in the world, and to the best of my knowledge the first commercial object database product made in Europe.

For me as a young researcher at that time, it was an incredible challenge. I had the possibilities to see my research ideas turned into reality and incorporated into a product that was supposed to replace the existing relational database systems on the market…

This did not happen.

Years later, relational database systems are still very well established, and only a few commercial companies offer object database systems.

So why embarking into this project? At first glance it looks like a challenge, not obvious, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why I like this project, but there are important factors that made me think and convince to accept to conduct this project.

First, Object Technology is main stream since years now. Both for modeling, UML, and for programming environments, Java, C#. Code generation, MDA, patterns, platforms, objects are all over. This is very different than in the mid 80s early 90s when object modelers and developers were early adopters.

Second, the Open Source community clearly demonstrated the feasibility of their ideas that Open Source is more than simply a number of talented developers around the world cooperating together, but it is also a viable business model. Examples of these are in the operating systems obviously Linux, and more recently in the database market, MySQL.

Third, interesting new markets are shaping up, such as the Embedded market. This could prove to be an ideal place for technologies such as object databases to bridge that gap between all these objects around and databases..

Funny enough, the gap between objects on one side and databases on the other side is still a problem, as it was several years ago. The important difference is that now million of objects have been deployed in a variety of production solutions and products around the world, not any more by a number of early adopters.

With this program I want to create a resource on the Web where researchers and developers can freely download technical information, teaching material and when possible software to help them in their work. Teaching at graduate or undergraduate level, conducting research, developing software for a commercial product, developing software for an open source project are all good examples of this.

This place is not exclusive, it is a shareable resource. I am honored that a number of friends and colleagues around the world have agreed to contribute to this project. They are all listed under the Expert Corners. A big thank you to all of them!

I also would like to thank our corporate sponsors for their support that made this project possible.

I wish you an enjoyable visit to ODBMS.ORG and I hope this will be useful for your work.

Best Regards
Roberto V. Zicari

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