Object-Oriented Database Design and Implementation Issues for Object Vector Product Format

The Object Vector Product Format (OVPF) project undertaken by the Naval Research laboratory and the University of Florida, and sponsored by the Defense Mapping Agency, successfully demonstrated the advantages that object-oriented (OO) technology can provide for importing and editing vector-formatted data. The final stage of this project, the design and implementation of an OO vector database supported by a commercial OO database management system (ODBMS) for the transformed vector data, is documented in this report. We begin with an overview of the OVPF framework and a discussion of ODBMS concepts. A comparison of two leading ODBMSs, GemStone and ObjectStore, is then presented with respect to issues such as architecture, security, migration policies, and use of transactions. This is followed by a discussion of specific issues related to the implementation of OO databases for OVPF using both GemStone and ObjectStore, including design decisions, required modifications to OVPF, and migration of data to the database. Finally, advantages and disadvantages of both systems realized from this experience are presented.