Uniform object management

Most real-world applications require a capability for both general-purpose programming and database transactions on persistent data. Unfortunately, the implementation techniques for these capabilities are notoriously incompatible. Programming languages stress memory-resident transient data with a rich collection of data types, while database systems stress disk-resident persistent data with a limited collection of data types. Even in object-oriented database systems, combining these capabilities is traditionally done using a two-level storage model in which storage formats are quite different. This approach suffers from the performance overhead required to translate data between these two levels. This paper describes the steps we have taken toward improving the simplicity and efficiency of applications by merging programming-language and database object management. Our approach includes using a single-level storage model, in which objects are represented as uniformly as possible, regardless of whether they are transient vs. persistent or resident in memory vs. disk. We illustrate the feasibility and performance advantages of this approach by describing our implementation experience and some performance measurements.