Object-Oriented DBMS and Beyond

Over the past 10+ years, object-oriented database systems have gone a long way from research prototypes to commercial products to real-life mission-critical applications. Currently, we also witness the extension of relational systems with salient object features, resulting in so-called object-relational DBMS. In this paper, we introduce and review the salient features of both approaches , discuss their merits and shortcomings, and for which kinds of applications they are best suited. We also elaborate on further necessary improvements of the current state of the art. Furthermore, we will speculate about several upcoming areas of database research in a broad sense (like global information systems, workkow management, component technology) where object-orientation and object-relational and object-oriented database systems in particular might (and should!) play a leading role.