SIGMOD challenges paper: database issues in telecommunications network management

Various types of computer systems are used behind the scenes in many parts of the telecommunications network to ensure its efficient and trouble-free operation. These systems are large, complex, and expensive real-time computer systems that are mission critical, and contains a database engine as a critical component. These systems share some of common database issues with conventional applications, but they also exhibit rather unique characteristics that present challenging database issues. Major DBMS issues for network management include choosing the right data model, handling two different kinds of data in terms of integrity and recovery constraints, supporting temporal queries, satisfying real-time performance and high availability requirements, and several miscellaneous issues. Some of these issues have been investigated in various areas of database researches, but most of them largely remain in the research stage. Advances in these areas that result in actual integrated implementations for data-intensive, real-time and temporal applications are eagerly awaited.