Managing Time in Relational Databases: How to Design, Update and Query Temporal Data

by Tom Johnston, Randall Weis

Overview

Managing Time in Relational Databases: How to Design, Update and Query Temporal Data introduces basic concepts that will enable businesses to develop their own framework for managing temporal data. It discusses the management of uni-temporal and bi-temporal data in relational databases, so that they can be seamlessly accessed together with current data; the encapsulation of temporal data structures and processes; ways to implement temporal data management as an enterprise solution; and the internalization of pipeline datasets.

The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 traces the history of temporal data management and presents a taxonomy of bi-temporal data management methods. Part 2 provides an introduction to Asserted Versioning, covering the origins of Asserted Versioning; core concepts of Asserted Versioning; the schema common to all asserted version tables, as well as the various diagrams and notations used in the rest of the book; and how the basic scenario works when the target of that activity is an asserted version table. Part 3 deals with designing, maintaining, and querying asserted version databases. It discusses the design of Asserted Versioning databases; temporal transactions; deferred assertions and other pipeline datasets; Allen relationships; and optimizing Asserted Versioning databases.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780123750419
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Publication date:	07/13/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	7.60(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Dr. Tom Johnston is the Chief Scientist at Asserted Versioning, LLC, which has developed a middleware product which supports the standard theory of bitemporal data, and which also implements the Asserted Versioning extensions to that standard theory. He is the co-author of Managing Time in Relational Databases (Morgan-Kaufmann, 2010). He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Randall Weis, founder and CEO of InBase, Inc, has more than 25 years of experience in IT and IT management, specializing in enterprise data architecture. Weis' technical expertise is in sophisticated, multi-tiered systems. He has designed logical and physical data models and implemented several high profile, very large database (VLDB) systems in the financial and insurance industries. These systems have had very stringent performance and real-time history requirements. His software development company, InBase, Inc., has developed software and Web sites used by some of the nations largest companies. Weis has been a presenter at various user groups, including Guide, Share, Midwest Database Users Group and Camp IT Expo. His technique for modeling history, retro activity and future dating has been reviewed and approved for the physical implementation of IBM's Insurance Application Architecture (IAA).

Table of Contents

Part 1. An Introduction to Temporal Data ManagementChapter 1. A Brief History of Temporal Data ManagementChapter 2. A Taxonomy of Bi-Temporal Data Management MethodsPart 2. An Introduction to Asserted VersioningChapter 3. The Origins of Asserted Versioning: Computer Science ResearchChapter 4. The Origins of Asserted Versioning: IT Best PracticesChapter 5. The Core Concepts of Asserted VersioningChapter 6. Diagrams and Other NotationsChapter 7. The Basic ScenarioPart 3. Designing, Maintaining and Querying Asserted Version DatabasesChapter 8. Designing and Generating Asserted Versioning DatabasesChapter 9. An Introduction to Temporal TransactionsChapter 10.Temporal Transactions on Single TablesChapter 11. Temporal Transactions on Multiple TablesChapter 12. Deferred Assertions and Other Pipeline DatasetsChapter 13. Re-Presenting Internalized Pipeline DatasetsChapter 14. Allen Relationship and Other QueriesChapter 15. Optimizing Asserted Versioning DatabasesChapter 16. ConclusionAppendix: Bibliographical Essay

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A practical guide to designing, maintaining, and querying time-oriented databases!

Editorial Reviews

"You cannot escape temporal data. You need to get over it, sit down and read what Tom and Randy are telling you in this book." —Joe Celko, Independent Consultant & Columnist for Intelligent Enterprise, USA"The authors present an original and comprehensive conceptual approach called Asserted Versioning, which includes support for bi-temporality and is a significant advance in the theory and practice of managing time-varying data." —Richard Snodgrass, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Arizona"Information technology consultants Johnston and Weis explain how to integrate time into a business data system, so that the past, present, and projected future of things can be accessed easily and quickly. Tables that show time are versioned tables, and they show how using them lowers the cost and increases the value of temporal data, data that shows change through time. They introduce temporal data management and asserted versioning, then look at designing, maintaining, and querying asserted version databases." —SciTech Book News

From the Publisher