RTDB: a real-time database manager for time-critical applications

Compared with traditional databases, database systems for time-critical applications have the distinct feature that they must satisfy timing constraints associated with transactions. Transactions in real-time database systems should be scheduled considering both data consistency and timing constraints. Since a database system must operate in the context of available operating system services, an environment for database systems development must provide facilities to support operating system functions and integrate them with database systems for experimentation. The authors chose the ARTS real-time operating system kernel. They present their experience in integrating a relational database manager with a real-time operating system kernel, and their attempts at providing flexible control for concurrent transaction management. On-going research issues involving the development of a programming interface and the authors´ efforts in using these techniques in implementing a specific experimental application (DOSE, distributed operating system experiment) are also discussed