ODBMS.ORG publishes new user reports

ODBMS.ORG NEWS RELEASE 9/4/2008

Second Series of ODBMS User Reports Published.

ODBMS.ORG, a vendor-independent non-profit group of high-profile
software experts lead by Prof. Roberto Zicari, today announced
the exclusive publication of a second series of new user reports
on using technologies for storing and handling persistent objects.

Today, 6 additional user reports (12-17/08) have been published,
from the following users:

	? 	Ajay Deshpande, Persistent
	? 	Horst Braeuner, City of Schwaebisch Hall
	? 	Tore Risch, Uppsala University
	? 	Michael Blaha, OMT Associates
	? 	Stefan Keller, HSR Rapperswil
	? 	Mohammed Zaki, Rensselaer

"I am often asked by users who are new to ODBMS to provide
untainted, objective reports from other users who have used ODBMS
before," says Roberto Zicari, editor of ODBMS.ORG. "To meet this
demand, I have started a new series of interviews with users of
technologies for storing and handling persistent objects. I
define 'users' in a very broad sense, including business line
managers, CTOs, software architects, consultants, developers, and  
researchers."

Prof. Zicari asked each users a number of equal questions, among
them if they had an "impedance mismatch" problem. Each time data
models, e.g. relational models, are used to persistently store
data and the program language used, e.g. in object-oriented Java,
are different, this is referred to as the "impedance mismatch"
problem. Users confirmed in different ways the existence of such
a problem.

"We face the object versus relational model impedance mismatch in
a significant number of our projects," confirms Ajay Deshpande.
"I do most of the development work in C++," concurs Mohammed
Zaki, "and I have yet to find an elegant/scalable solution to the
'persistency' problem."

But solutions to the impedance mismatch problem were different.
"We have developed software to bridge the impedance mismatch,"
says Tore Risch.

On the contrary, Horst Braeuner is not developing software but
relies on solutions from software ISP, which adds a complexity
dimensions: "Sure we have an impedance mismatch BUT this is
lesser influenced by ourselves than by the different software
vendors/solution providers. There are no agreements between them
to coordinate their development(s) and/or to use our stored data
cross the different applications," says Horst Braeuner, CTO and
CIO at the City of Schwaebisch Hall.

Michael Blaha with many years of experience as a consultant
summarizes as follows: "The primary lesson is not to become
enamored with a single approach of coupling relational databases
to programming code and to consider all options."

Among wishes for new research/development in the area of object
persistence in the next 12-24 months were an API-Model where all
storage data can be stored, and persistency as a first-class
feature of the programming language of choice.

ODBMS.ORG plans to continue the series of users reports on a
regular base.
The complete initial series of user reports is available for free  
download:
http://www.odbms.org/downloads.html#odbms_ur


About ODBMS.ORG
ODBMS.ORG (www.odbms.org) is a vendor-independent, not-for-profit
educational program on object database technology and the
integration between object-oriented programming and databases.
Designed by Prof. Roberto Zicari of Frankfurt University, the
program's goal is to promote and further the use of object
databases - by offering free resources for students, faculty and
researchers at universities and research centers, as well as for
JAVA and .NET developers in the commercial and the open source
world.
Content is provided by a panel of internationally recognized
experts, who share research articles and teaching materials with
the community via the organization's Web portal.

Contact ODBMS.ORG at editor@odbms.org.