DESIGN OF MODEL FOR OBJECT-ORIENTED DATABASE AND CLASS OBJECT COMMUNICATION IN DATA STORAGE SYSTEM

ABSTRACT

Object data are complex and are difficult to manipulate in databases. Many efforts have been made to solve the problem but yet the complexity tends to increase due to the increased availability and usage of object data. The need to improve the storage of object data, object-process communication in a data storage system and the development of a formal model for object-oriented database systems and its application in system development motivated this research. The research developed a formal model for full object-oriented database development. It used the Object-Oriented System Analysis and Design Methodology (OOADM) for its analysis and design. A Conference Management System (CMS) was selected as a use case for designing the system to illustrate how the Object-Database architecture and Object-Role Modeling is deployed in solving the complexity in information representation in CMS system. The system development parameters were based on the conditionality that holds in a CMS system operational environment. The tools deployed in the implementation of the system include PHP, MySQL database management system and NetBeans IDE. The result of the system shows that a complex system can be developed by using formal model and object-role model developed in this dissertation to simplify the system and makes it easy for object-oriented processes to communicate well with object-oriented data.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1  Background of the Study

An object database (also known as object-oriented database) is a database model in which information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. Object-oriented databases are designed and built according to the object-oriented paradigm in which everything is modeled as objects including the data (Hibatullah, 2016). This type of data model helps in tackling complex data structures, for instance multimedia content, in a more natural way and provides a seamless transition from design to conception. According to object-oriented database system manifesto (Atkinson et. al. 1989), an Object-Oriented Database Management System (OODBMS) must satisfy two criteria:

1. It should be a Database Management System (DBMS)

1. It should be an object-oriented system

When database capabilities are combined with Object-Oriented (OO) programming language capabilities, the result is an Object Database Management System (ODBMS).

Today‟s trend in programming languages is to utilize objects, thereby making Object Oriented Database Management System (OODBMS) ideal for Object-Oriented programmers because they can develop the product, store them as objects, and can replicate or modify existing objects to make new objects within the OODBMS. Information today includes not only text data but video, audio, graphs, spatial data and photos which are considered complex data types.

In many cases non-experts confuse Object-based Databases (OBD), Object-Relational Databases (ORD) with Object-Oriented Datases (OODB) the three may sound similar but

they are different and must not be mixed. According to Ogunlere and Idowu (2015) the different is always there in their features and each have distinct implementation objective. Many data stored in data warehouses contain mixture of simple and complex data. A warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, non-volatile, time-variant collection of data in support of management’s decisions. It is a collection of decision support technologies, aimed at enabling the knowledge worker, such as executive, manager, and analyst, to arrive at better and faster decisions. Data warehouses provide access to data for complex analysis, knowledge discovery, and decision-making. They support high performance demands on an organization’s data and information. It provides an enormous amount of historical and static data from three tiers:

1. Relational databases

• Multidimensional Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) applications

• Client analysis tools

A data warehouse by itself does not create value, but value comes from the use of the data in the warehouse.

Advances in hardware and software capability have enabled these complex data to be captured and manipulated in a digital format. Almost any kind of complex data such as images, audio, video, geographic maps and three-dimensional graphics can be digitally stored. For instance an image can be represented as a two-dimensional array of pixels (picture element) where each pixel contains a numeric property representing its colour or shade of gray. Digital storage is usually cheaper and more reliable than traditional means such as paper, film or slides. In addition, digital storage allows easier retrieval and manipulation. Digital images can be manipulated in an image editor with operations such as cropping, texturing and colour funning.

The ability to store and manipulate complex data does not by itself drive the demand for object database technology. Rather the need to store large amounts of complex data and integrate complex data with simple data drives the demand for object database technology and its communication with object-oriented codes in various applications. Many modern and computerized organizations and business applications require large amounts of complex data. For instance JAMB, WAEC, NECO, INEC and even universities records whether online or off-line require large amount of complex data. Insurance claims, medical records, real estates and other identity based records can involve large amount of image data. The ability to simultaneously retrieve complex and simple data is becoming important in many business applications. For instance to review patient‟s condition, a physician may request x-ray along with vital statistics. Without integration two separate programs are required to display the data; an image editor to display the x-rays and a Database management system (DBMS) to retrieve the vital statistics. The ability to retrieve both image and vital statistics in a single query is a large improvement. Besides retrieving complex data, new operations also may be necessary. For instance a physician may want to compare the similarity of a patient‟s x-rays with x-rays that show abnormalities. In this work new design model will be presented for use in the development of systems that provids readily solution to the issues of complex and simple data integration in an organizational system.

1.2              Statement of the Problem

The availability of complex data and the need to integrate it with simple data in a single DBMS is the main problem calling for the study. The problem of mismatch between the data types in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) and the data types of modern programming languages makes software more complex and difficult to develop. This mismatch is more prominent in complex data. Object-oriented programming languages often

have richer and dynamic type systems than most Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) which often have fixed types. Data stores or warehouses need direct matches to enable it support speedy retrieval required in decision making data content systems. The problem of the present textual representation of data and file storage of complex data creates challenge of delayed fetch and reinterpretation of data before use in today‟s data warehouses. How can this be resolved? How can we design a system for storing complex data to allow communication between object-oriented DBMS and object-oriented programming data. Many research have been going on and some progress seem to have been made but there is no any database that have provided solution to these challenge as at the time of this research.

1.3              Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the research is to design models for object-oriented database and class object communication in data storage system. The objectives of this research include to:

1. design a formal model for object-oriented database systems

1. design an Object-Role Model for object-oriented database systems capable of handling complex data problems in information representation in data store or warehousing and easy data fetch and management.
2. implement the Object-Role Model designed using Conference Management System (CMS) as a Use Case and PHP Programming Language to simplify the integration of the system.
3. To evaluate the performance of the model in the conference Management system use case

1.4              Significance of the study

Many modern business applications require large amounts of complex data. So there is need to store large amounts of complex data and integrate the complex data with simple data in a

single application. There is equally a need to make databases easy to fit in the way modern programs are developed so that data can be inherited, extended, polymorphed and hiding (secured) from external programs. There have been attempts at achieving that but it seems that the lack of a solid theoretical base for the development have made it difficult for the development of fully object-oriented databases. Most attempts ended in relational database improvement, object-relational databases and document-oriented databases. The gap that full object-oriented database can fill still remains open due to the complex nature of modern objects. Images for instance has moved from uneditable files (.gif), to editable files (.jpg) and then now to programmable files (.svg) and serialization is changing the way objects and data can be manipulated. Many developers know the benefits of efficiency in programming that the combination of complex and simple data offer especially in todays networked computing environment but most current database still separate them and manipulate them separately or by using their properties. The major challenge in the development is the theoretical base in which the system will be developed. The scarcity of foundation for development of fully object-oriented database system is what the research intend to fill. The models developed in this project offers clear road map which can be followed in the process of building a fully object-oriented database. This proposes new ways of storing, manipulating and retrieving complex and simple data simultaneously and also using Object-Role Modeling to simplify the design and integration of such system. It also creates awareness of new expectations which will spur DBMS vendors to create new DBMS‟s that can integrate the formal model developed in this research in their products. The significance of data in modern life can be likened to importance of water or air to human life. The biggest concern remains that the nature of modern data are gradually increasing in images, videos, serialized files, encrypted documents and other forms of complex data. This is a shift from simple text which older

databases have been handling efficiently. In recent time the objects have been handled separately simply because they can not be integrated. The closet approach to integration have been in the object-relational databases but the rise of MongoDB a document-oriented database management system have simply proven that continued separation still holds. Modern database development researchers and those working in the field of databases management system development will find the work in this project as a sound base for the improvement on their research in an attempt to overcome the challenges of complex data handling via object- oriented database to object-oriented programming seemless communication. Developers will also benefit by using the concept in the work in solving the new changes which are bound to come with time so that their application should be compliant to future trends in object- oriented developments, especially in the area of databases.

1.5              Scope of the Study

The research develops models through system conceptualization that can handle object (complex) data in a database management environment. It is important to observe that the work is not on object-relational databases, nor in object databases rather it is on object- oriented database. The models will be implemented using available tools with an object- oriented programming language PHP. The research work does not cover the development of any commercial Object-Oriented Database Management System (OODBMS) or any language for its communication need. It covers design of a formal model and an Object-role model which will be the foundation of a real Object-Oriented database that meets with the object- oriented database specified in the work.

1.6  Limitation of the Study

Object-oriented database management targets complex applications which are often a subject of research than enterprenuer development; this hindered the sponsorship we would have

gotten from local enterprises. The challenge of implementation of the system using DBMS that have our specification is there, since enterprise databases are not often made up of complex data content and developing a new DBMS is out of the scope of the research. This made us to extend functionaliries of available DBMS to accommodate the new specifications made in the database schema. There are no pure Object-oriented DBMS for use, most are still research work which we believe that our research will complement and also improve.

1. Definition of terms:

Data: are the values of subjects with respect to qualitative or quantitative variables, measured, collected, analyzed and reported and can be visualized using graphs, images or other analysis tools. Data as a general concept refers to the fact or pieces of information generated as activities are carried out in organizations.

Raw Data: is a collection of numbers or characters before it has been “cleaned” and corrected by researchers. Raw data needs to be corrected to remove outliers or obvious instrument or data entry errors.

System Data: This is data represented or coded in some form suitable for better usage or processing by the computer or any electronic system.

Database: Database is a collection of persistent data that can be shared and interrelated, it can also be generally stored and accessed electronically from a computer system. Where databases are more complex they are often developed using formal design and modelling techniques.

Database Management System: A database management system (DBMS) is a software that interacts with end users, applications, the database itself to capture and analyze the data and provides facilities to administer the database. DBMS are grouped based on the database model that they support.

Data Warehouse: a central repository for summarized and integrated data from operational database and external data sources. A data warehouse is a system used for reporting and data analysis and is considered a core component of business intelligence. Data warehouse is a central repositories of integrated data from one or more disparate sources. They store historic, current, simple and complex data in one single place. When a different data model is developed, the aggregation system or schema of the data warehouse is expected to change.

Simple Data: Simple data are often refered to as primitive data types, they are mostly in form of the normal text data, number and the data form that need no further definition. It also refers to           an arrangement of data in a data base or file in which each grouping of data, such as a record, is in a form that does not require further definition.

Complex Data: Complex data is often refered to as composite data type. They are any

Data type which can be constructed in a program using the programming language primitive (simple) data types and other composite types. It is sometimes called a structure or Aggregate data type, even a class or struct in some programming languages like Java or C. The act of constructing a complex type is known as composition.

Object: An object can be a variable (data), a data structure, a function or a method. It is a value in memory referenced by an identifier. It is an instance of a class which is a combination of variables, functions and data structures. In relational database management, an object can be a table or column or ab association between data and a database entity.

Object database: An object database is a database management system that represent data using the basic capabilities for an object: identity, properties, and attributes inherent in object- oriented paradigm but does not integrate methods with the attributes nor implements data

extension (inheritance) and polymorphism. This is often confused with object-oriented databases.

Object-Oriented Database: An object-oriented database is a database management system that represents data using both the basic capabilities for an object: identity, properties, and attributes that are inherent in object-oriented paradigm and also integrate methods with the attributes and also implements data extension (inheritance) and polymorphism. Data extensions easily allow developers to build complex data defined as data classes which is not possible with object databases.

Document-oriented Databases

A document-oriented database is a database management system designed for storing, retrieving and managing document-oriented information (semi-structured data). They are often referred to as NoSQL database management Systems. One of the most popular of NoSQL include key-value store (KVS) and MongoDB. The difference between KVS and MongoDB lies in the way the data is processed; in a key-value store, the data is considered to be inherently opaque to the database, whereas MongoDB relies on internal structure in the document in order to extract metadata that the database engine uses for further optimization.

Object-relational Database:

Object-relational database is a hybrid of object database management system and relational database management system that represent data in a table-oriented format using the basic capabilities for an object: identity, properties, and attributes inherent in object-oriented paradigm.

Programming Language is a vocabulary and set of grammatical rules for instructing a computer or computing device to perform specific tasks.

Object-Oriented programming is a programming language model organized around objects rather than “actions” and data rather than logic.

Object Role Modeling (ORM) is a powerful method for designing and querying database models at the conceptual level, where the application is described in terms easily understood by non-technical users.

Integration is the act of bringing together smaller components into a single system that functions as one.

Conceptualization is the process of development and clarification of concepts. In other words, clarifying one‟s concepts with words and examples and arriving at precise verbal definitions.

Data integration is the combination of technical and business processes used to combine data from disparate sources into meaningful and valuable information.

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