A DATABASE ARCHITECTURE FOR SUPPORTING BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS

Abstract

The central hypothesis of this paper is that database design and systems design in general can be simplified considerably by tailoring the design methods to a suitable range of applications. Domain-specific knowledge can be incorporated into a specialized database architecture that leaves the designer with the task to specify only the application-specific parts. Based on an analysis of business constraints, we propose such an architecture for the domain of business transaction processing. The architecture offers several data and transaction management services, special-purpose sub-databases, and design checking rules to be used by the application designer. Two services, input management and audit and control services, are described in more detail.