Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Leading Commercial Databases
In Appendix E, you will find broad reviews of major commercial database systems.
At this point, let us list some of the leading systems in alphabetic sequence of the
product names:
ACCESS
DATACOM/DB
DB2
FOXPRO
IDMS
INFORMIX
INGRES
ORACLE
PARADOX
SQL SERVER
SYBASE
SYSTEM 2000
Peek into the Future
Chapter 20 covers the trends in database technology in extensive detail. The fol-
lowing list indicates some of the specific developments.
Very large databases.
Modern commercial database management systems can
support very large volumes of data in the terabyte range. Data access and manipu-
lation do not pose problems. As databases store data for corporate data warehouses
and for on-line analytical processing applications, the sizes of databases will con-
tinue grow rapidly.
User-defined data types.
Newer applications for global organizations need special
data types. One example is the spatial data type where data values consist of areas
and volumes. In addition to standard data types, DBMSs have begun to enable data-
base users to define their own data types with special characteristics.
Complex data manipulation.
The current set of data manipulation functions such
as sum, difference, average, and the like are no longer adequate when your users
want to utilize the database for complex calculations. While performing analysis,
they might need to calculate moving averages. Modern database software products
provide the ability to perform complex data manipulations.
Intelligent database servers.
The trend already includes automatic execution of
programs based on exception conditions detected from the data in the database.
Future database management systems will contain a substantial extent of logic for
intelligent triggers to initiate automatic operations.
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