Using object-oriented database management technology in agricultural decision support software

Agricultural decision support software generally requires the use of comple x data models and large databases. The authors investigated the use of an o bject-oriented database management (OODBMS) system to support data persiste nce for such applications. Object oriented database management systems repr esent a new approach to database management and are expected to replace rel ational systems in certain types of applications. Essentially, an OODBMS ex tends the object model used in software applications to the persistent obje ct store. The use of such a database management system is discussed as well as how it affects the design and operation of applications. The OO approac h to data persistence is compared to the relational one and examples taken from a software development project called SAGE are presented. The SAGE pro ject is aimed at developing an abject oriented framework for information ma nagement and decision support in the agricultural and environmental field. The use of an OODBMS provided flexibility and has shown to be a potentially very effective tool for the construction and delivery of sophisticated sof tware environments for the management of agroenvironmental data.