Authors:
Martin Lorenz
1
;
Günter Hesse
1
and
Jan-Peer Rudolph
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Potsdam, Germany
;
2
LZN Laser Zentrum Nord GmbH, Germany
Keyword(s):
Object-relational Mapping, O/R Middleware, Enterprise Patterns, Data Model Design.
Abstract:
Object-relational mapping (ORM) is a mechanism to link classes of an object-oriented (OO) programming
language to tables of a relational database management system (RDBMS). When designing a mapping for
an application’s domain model, different strategies exist to map associations and inheritance relationships to
database tables. Each strategy has a different impact on the application’s quality characteristics. Developers
need to understand the impact of a mapping strategy to make informed decisions. In the absence of cost models
to quantify the impact, guidelines and best practices have been developed to allow differentiated considerations
of strategies. However, looking closer at these guidelines, two major flaws become apparent - incompleteness
and inconsistency.
In this paper, a comprehensive literature study is presented, which includes an analysis of guidelines and
best practices from industry and academia. We propose a consolidation approach, which identifies relevant
aspects of
mapping strategies that impact a system’s quality characteristics. The approach derives a multi-level
organization, which describes the relation between mapping strategy aspects and quality characteristics of a
system. The identified mapping aspects and the organization can serve as a framework to improve existing
guidelines and to resolve inconsistencies.
(More)