SUPPORTING ENGINEERING APPLICATIONS BY NEW DATA-BASE PROCESSING CONCEPTS - AN EXPERIENCE REPORT

Data base management systems for nonstandard applications (nonstandard data base systems, NDBS), in particular for engineering applications, nowadays constitute one of the most important challenges in the area of data base research. Some major obstacles are concerned with problems of modeling and processing complex engineering objects. Some new system architectures have been proposed, and appropriate concepts for handling the new types of application objects have been developed over the past few years. Based on PRIMA, an NDBS-kernel prototype implementation, we motivate a workstation-oriented architecture for NDBS application systems. We explain a prototypical application system in the environment of VLSI-chip design, which serves as a practical example in handling complex objects. Analyzing the weaknesses of this initial approach, we derive general concepts for application linkage, discussing, in Particular, key issues for an efficient object processing and language binding.