An Architectural Framework for Object Management Systems

Much research has been done in the last decade in the closely related areas of object-oriented programming languages and databases. Both areas now seem to be working toward a common end, that of an object management system, or OMS. An OMS is constructed similarly to an OODB but provides a general purpose concurrent object oriented programming language as well, sharing the object base with the OODB query facilities. In this paper, we will define several different types of object systems (object servers, persistent OOPL's, OODB's and OMS's) in terms of their interfaces and capabilities. We will examine the distinguishing features and general architecture of systems of each type in the light of a general model of OMS architecture. Copyright Ó 1991 Steven S. Popovich Popovich is supported in part by NASA grant NGT 50583. The Programming Systems Laboratory is supported by National Science Foundation grants CCR-9000930 and CCR-8858029, by grants from AT&T, BNR, DEC and SRA, by the New York S..