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Aspect-Oriented Databases

Principal Investigator: Awais Rashid
People Involved: Nicholas Leidenfrost, Neil Longhran, Ruzanna Chitchyan
Description
Related Publications
Useful Link: The ODBMS.ORG portal was launched on September 15.

Description

This initiative aims at bringing the notion of separation of concerns to databases. It extends existing database technology with aspects and serves a twofold purpose:

  • Aspects which crosscut persistent entities (both data and meta-data) residing in the database and are persistent by nature are separated. This localises changes to these persistent aspects and improves maintainability, re
    configurability, extensibility and change management. Examples of such aspects are instance adaptation, versioning, clustering, constraints, security and data representation.
  • Applications that require aspects to outlive the program execution can store them in a database. Aspect persistence is a natural increment on existing work on the lifetime of aspects which argue that at least some aspects should live for the lifetime of the program execution and not die at compile-time. Example scenarios for aspect persistence include: an aspect repository for managing and reusing aspects in a distributed environment where aspects live beyond the execution of the programs using them and an automated software development environment with both components and aspects residing in a database. The appropriate components and aspects can be retrieved by the assembling process which carries out the weaving.

As part of this work a customisable and extensible aspect-oriented object database evolution system, SADES, has been developed. A customisable evolution framework, AspOEv, for object-oriented databases is in development. Persistent aspect stores have been developed to store AspectJ aspects in the Jasmine object-oriented database and SQL-92 compliant relational databases.

A related theme of our work is exploring the effectiveness of AOP techniques to separate persistence (a classical crosscutting concern) from other application concerns using real world scenarios.

Publications

SADES

  • A. Rashid, P. Sawyer (2005) A Database Evolution Taxonomy for Object Oriented Databases. Journal of Software Maintenance – Practice and Experience. Volume 17, Pages 93-141.
  • T. Mens, J. Buckley, A. Rashid, M. Zenger, G. Kniesel (2005) Towards a Taxonomy of Software Evolution. Journal of Software Maintenance – Practice and Experience (To Appear).
  • Rashid, A (2004) Aspect-Oriented Programming for Database Systems. Chapter in book on Aspect-Oriented Software Development (To Appear). Editor(s): M. Aksit, S. Clarke, T. Elrad, R. Filman,
  • Awais Rashid (2003) Aspect-Oriented Database Systems. Book, ISBN 3-540-00948-5. Springer-Verlag.
  • Rashid A. (2002) Weaving Aspects in a Persistent Environment. ACM SIGPLAN Notices. Volume 37,No, Pages 36-44. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. (2002) Aspect-Oriented Schema Evolution in Object Databases: A Comparative Case Study. Workshop on Unanticipated Software Evolution (held in conjunction with European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming ECOOP 2002. Pdf link.
  • Rashid A., P. Sawyer (2001) Aspect-Orientation and Database Systems: An Effective Customisation Approach. IEE Proceedings - Software. Volume 148, Pages 156-164.
  • Rashid, A. (2001) A Database Evolution Approach for Object-Oriented Databases. IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM). IEEE Computer Society Press. Pages 561-564. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. (2001) A Hybrid Approach to Separation of Concerns: The Story of SADES. 3rd International Conference on Meta-Level Architectures and Separation of Concerns (Reflection). Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 2192, Pages 231-249. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. (2001) Multi-Paradigm Implementation of an Object Database Evolution System. Workshop on Multi-Paradigm Programming with OO Languages (held with ECOOP 2001). John von Neuman Institute for Computing. Volume John, Pages 1-9. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and P. Sawyer (2000) Object Database Evolution using Separation of Concerns. ACM SIGMOD Record. Volume 29(4), Pages 26-33. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A., P. Sawyer and E. Pulvermueller (2000) A Flexible Approach for Instance Adaptation during Class Versioning. Symposium on Objects and Databases (held with ECOOP 2000). Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 1944, Pages 101-113. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and E. Pulvermueller (2000) From Object-Oriented to Aspect-Oriented Databases. 11th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA). Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 1873, Pages 125-134. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and P. Sawyer (2000) Transparent Dynamic Database Evolution from Java. L' Object. Volume 6(3), Pages 373-386. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and R. Chitchyan (2000) Reconfigurability in Object Database Management Systems: An Aspect-Oriented Approach. Object-Oriented Information Systems (OOIS). Springer. Pages 303-314. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and P. Sawyer (1999) Dynamic Relationships in Object Oriented Databases: A Uniform Approach. 10th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA). Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 1677, Pages 26-35. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and P. Sawyer (1999) Evaluation for Evolution: How Well Commercial Systems Do?. ECOOP 99 International Workshop on Object-Oriented Databases. Pages 13-24. Pdf link.
  • Lock, S., A. Rashid, P. Sawyer and G. Kotonya (1999) Systematic Change Impact Determination in Complex Object Database Schemata. ECOOP 99 Workshop for PhD Students in OO Systems (PhDOOS 99). Eindhoven University of Technology. Volume ISBN, Pages 31-40. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and P. Sawyer (1998) Facilitating Virtual Representation of CAD Data through a Learning Based Approach to Conceptual Data. 9th International Conference on Database and Expert Systems Applications (DEXA). Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 1460, Pages 384-393. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. (1998) SADES - A Semi-Autonomous Database Evolution System. 8th International ECOOP Workshop for PhD Students in Object-Oriented Systems (PhDOOS). Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 1543, Pages 24-25.

AspOEv

  • Rashid, A (2004) Aspect-Oriented Programming for Database Systems. Chapter in book on Aspect-Oriented Software Development (To Appear). Editor(s): M. Aksit, S. Clarke, T. Elrad, R. Filman,
  • Rashid A., N. Leidenfrost (2004) Supporting Flexible Object Database Evolution with Aspects. International Conference on Generative Programming and Component Engineering (GPCE 2004) (Accepted to Appear). Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. (2003) A Framework for Customisable Schema Evolution in Object-Oriented Databases. International Database Engineering and Applications Symposium (IDEAS). IEEE Computer Society Press. Pages 325 - 329. Pdf link.
  • Awais Rashid (2003) Aspect-Oriented Database Systems. Book, ISBN 3-540-00948-5. Springer-Verlag.
  • Green R., A. Rashid (2002) An Aspect-Oriented Framework for Schema Evolution in Object-Oriented Databases. 1st Workshop on Aspects, Components, and Patterns for Infrastructure Software (held with AOSD 2002). Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A., N. Loughran (2002) Relational Database Support for Aspect-Oriented Programming. Proceedings of NetObjectDays Conference. Editor(s): Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 2591, Pages 233-247. Pdf link.
  • Rashid A., P. Sawyer (2001) Aspect-Orientation and Database Systems: An Effective Customisation Approach. IEE Proceedings - Software. Volume 148, Pages 156-164.

Persistent Aspect Stores

  • N. Loughran, A. Rashid (2004) Managing Variability throughout the Software Development Lifecycle. Workshop on Managing Variabilities Consistently in Design and Code (held with OOPSLA 2004). Pdf link.
  • Rashid A. (2002) Weaving Aspects in a Persistent Environment. ACM SIGPLAN Notices. Volume 37,No, Pages 36-44. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A., N. Loughran (2002) Relational Database Support for Aspect-Oriented Programming. Proceedings of NetObjectDays Conference. Editor(s): Springer-Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 2591, Pages 233-247. Pdf link.
  • Loughran, N., A. Rashid (2002) Mining Aspects. Workshop on Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design (with AOSD 2002). Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. and G. Kotonya (2001) Risk Management in Component-Based Development: A Separation of Concerns Perspective. ECOOP Workshop on Advanced Separation of Concerns (ECOOP Workshop Reader). Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Pdf link.
  • Rashid, A. (2000) On to Aspect Persistence. 2nd International Symposium on Generative and Component-based Software Engineering (GCSE). Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 2177, Pages 26-36. Pdf link.

Modularising Persistence using AOP

  • Rashid, A. and R. Chitchyan (2003) Persistence as an Aspect. 2nd International Conference on Aspect-Oriented Software Development. ACM. Pages 120-129. Pdf link.