Migrating Relational Data to an ODBMS: Strategies and Lessons from a Molecular Biology Experience

The growing maturity of ODBMS technology is causing many enterprises to consider migrating relational databases to ODBMS's. While data remapping is relatively straightforward in most cases, greater challenges lie in economically and non-invasively adapting legacy application software. We report on a genetics laboratory database migration experiment, which was facilitated by both organization of the relational data in object-like form and a C++ framework designed to insulate application code from relational artifacts. Although this experiment was largely successful, we discovered to our surprise that the framework failed to encapsulate three subtle aspects of the relational implementation, thereby "contaminating" application code. We analyze the underlying issues, and offer cautionary guidance to future migrators. 1. Introduction Relational database (RDB) management systems are the dominant database technology in use today. Initially developed in the 1970's, RDB technology is mature, ..