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Design Decomposition Blog
Iridium Satellite Collision in Space
You might have seen the recent news reports about the collision between U.S. and Russian communication satellites. The U.S. satellite was one of the Iridium satellites. What wasn’t reported and you probably don’t know is that an object database management system (ODBMS) is an important part of the Iridium system. Even though ODBMSs are a [...]
February 13, 2009
(The Acronym) SOA is (Perhaps) Dead (at Some Companies); Long Live Services
I am now also posting on the Cutter Blog. My initial posting is (The Acronym) SOA is (Perhaps) Dead (at Some Companies); Long Live Services. It is a response to Anne Thomas Manes’ SOA is Dead; Long Live Services on her blog at the Burton Group.
January 9, 2009
Atomicity
The typical definition of an atomic task or process is one that cannot be decomposed further. This is vague and subject to interpretation. The Decomposition Matrix on this site uses a specific definition: A task (for business process diagrams) or a process (for data flow diagrams) is atomic if every input relates to every output [...]
December 3, 2008
Well-Formed Business Process Diagrams
My last posting referenced the criteria for a well-formed business process diagram mentioned in Business Process Driven SOA using BPMN and BPEL by Matjaz B. Juric and Kapil Pant. I am going to expand on their criteria to create a more comprehensive definition of a well-formed business process diagram. To start, here are three criteria [...]
November 18, 2008
Recent Business Process Modeling Books
I recently received two new books on business process modeling. Both books looked interesting because they had great titles. As it turns out, one book is great and the other not so good. The not so good book is Business Process Driven SOA using BPMN and BPEL by Matjaz B. Juric and Kapil Pant. There [...]
October 9, 2008
The Design Decomposition Blog
is written by Doug Barry.

A comparison of relational and object model techniques is shown in the following table. It uses the concepts of data abstraction, inheritance, and encapsulation. Each of the links in the tables will open new windows containing more explanation.

Object Model Concepts Relational model concept Object model concept Object model benefits
Data abstraction Intersection entities and indexing to represent references between tuples OIDS to directly represent references between objects Simpler schema to represent complex data
Inheritance Type codes Class hierarchy Direct representation of the references between type and subtypes as well as support for specialized processing for each subtype
Encapsulation "If then else if" code based on type codes and management of the code, usually with libraries Encapsulation provides built-in dispatching to ensure the correct code executes on the correct data Reduced application code and reduced chance of error where the wrong code executes on the right data

Also see Chapter 3 in the Object Database Handbook. That chapter has an extensive comparison of the two models.

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