Integrity Maintenance in Extensible Databases

INTRODUCTION The use of databases for advanced applications is a rapidly growing and changing field, due to the continuous incorporation of new technologies and media in current systems. Whereas in the near past Database Management Systems (DBMS) mainly use to store and manage tabular data, now they need t model complex structured objects, multimedia data, semi-structured and unstructured documents. Each of these improvements has its own semantics and complexity. In order to allow an adequate description of database applications, data models are used to describe the conceptual schema of the database. If new categories of applications need to be incorporated or created, and the data model does not fit well with these applications, the model itself must be expanded. The semantics of the new constructs must be defined and the integrity of objects in the new constructs must be guaranteed. Since a DBMS is in general not expandable, except for future versions of the same product, there are two alternatives: (i) to move the whole application to another system that is capable to adequately process the new structures, or (ii) to develop specific routines, probably with its own storage systems, in order to incorporate the new application. Clearly both solutions are unsatisfactory. The first solution is only applicable if there exists a DBMS that considers the new structures. Even if it exists, moving to the new environment means reimplementation of the application, and this is very traumatic and demands