Applications and System Characteristics
Doug Locke · Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks · 2005
SummaryThese four sample application domains, while certainly not representative of all real-time applications potentially using databases, illustrate some of the widely diverse requirements involved. It is interesting to note that the numerical values for the application data characteristics shown for each domain are gen- erally stated neither in the “official” application requirements documentation, nor in the design documentation that reflects derived application requirements.These figures are not described in system requirements or design because it is not generally recognized that these characteristics drive the design of the data-handling mechanisms to be used by the application. Instead, most actual application designs either use ad-hoc data handling mechanisms, or attempt to use normal commerical database products that provide either anomalous cosistency behavior, or inappropriate response characteristics due to excessive adherence to the ACID properties. One of the main purposes of this book is to demonstrate how application designers can use these derived data requirements to define appropriate characteristics of real-time databases that will support them.