Database Reference
In-Depth Information
22.6 The Future of Distributed Database Systems
Since the mid-1990's, two significant technologies have significantly influenced the
development and direction of distributed databases. These are:
•
Object Technology (OT)
•
Electronic Communication Systems (ECS)
22.6.1 Object Technology
In a few short years, OT has come to dominate the contemporary software engineering
industry. New products are forced by industry demands to support OT in some form.
Much work has been done by the Object Management Group (OMG) in establishing
the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) standards for distributed
database systems. The Microsoft equivalents of CORBA are Component Object Model (COM),
Distributed COM (DCOM), and more recently, the .NET framework.
CORBA standards span a wide range of specifications from user interface to object-object
communication. They are supported by some of the leading software engineering firms
in the industry. With the emergence of Java, the software industry has made significant
progress in the area of platform independent software components than ever before.
As mentioned in chapter 6, Java (through JDBC) supports both CORBA and ODBC.
22.6.2 Electronic Communication Systems
Complimentary to the advances in OT, the past decade has seen much achievement in
the arena of
electronic communication systems
(ECS). Contemporary operating systems
are more sophisticated, supporting a wider range of communication protocols. The
protocols and their underlying technology have been refined to provide much higher
transmission rates. Also, communication protocols provide much more services than
previously.
With a refinement of, and emphasis on standards, interoperability is now a much
more attainable goal than in the previous decade. These advances, when combined with
those in OT, will contribute to the proliferation of heterogeneous information models.
