Re: Object Oriented Databases

On 8 Oct 2003, Ryan Gaffuri wrote:

> Have you seen a growth in the use of these types of databases?

There was growth in the early 1990s. I've found it very hard to get any recent numbers as most of the analysts (Gartner, IDC, ...) appear to have stopped tracking this technology.

> The
> only place Ive heard of them used are in university and research
> projects.

There are some commercial users too.

> I know there is an atom smasher at Stanford that is using an
> OO database called 'Objectivty'.

Yes.

>
> What is your experience?

Well, I toured the world (several times) and presented widely on OODBs at numerous conferences and user group meetings (just did an invited talk on this topic in Denmark a few weeks ago). People politely listen, but most are not interested in using OODBs. I also helped put together a couple of books with case studies:

M.E.S. Loomis and A.B. Chaudhri (eds.) (1998) Object databases in practice (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall)

A.B. Chaudhri and R. Zicari (eds.) (2000) Succeeding with object databases: a practical look at today's implementations with Java. and XML (New York: John Wiley)

> I dont see them anywhere in the private
> sector.

There are pockets of use here and there. My experience from the financial sector is that there was selective use in some companies in the last decade (e.g. Nomura, JP Morgan, Chase, etc.).

> I know some vendors have Object Oriented extensions, but very
> few people use them.

This is probably true. My colleague Paul Brown posts in this group from time-to-time. He has had extensive experience working with customers using so-called Object-Relational Databases. He may pick-up and give you more about where he thinks this technology is used and why.

HTH Akmal B. Chaudhri Received on Wed Oct 08 2003 - 17:05:45 CEST