Application for parallel disks for efficient handling of object-oriented databases

In today´s workstation based environment, applications such as design databases, multimedia databases, and knowledge bases do not fit well into the relational data processing framework. The object-oriented data model has been proposed to model and process such complex databases. Due to the nature of the supported applications, object-oriented database systems need efficient mechanisms for the retrieval of complex objects and the navigation along the semantic links among objects. Object clustering and buffering have been suggested as efficient mechanisms for the retrieval of complex objects. However, to improve the efficiency of the aforementioned operations, one has to look at the recent advances in storage technology. This paper is an attempt to investigate the feasibility of using parallel disks for object-oriented databases. It analyzes the conceptual changes needed to map the clustering and buffering schemes proposed on the new underlying architecture. The simulation and performance evaluation of the proposed leveled-clustering and mapping schemes utilizing parallel I/O disks are presented and analyzed