Penguin: Objects for Programs, Relations for Persistence

Penguin is designed to support object-orientation for application programs while using relational databases as the persistent backing store. Objects are attractive to customers and programmers of applications because they structure information into a relevant and effective view. The use of relational databases that store of large amounts of base data for long periods of time enables Penguin to take advantage of mature solutions for sharing of information, concurrency, transactions, and recovery. We expect that application programs will be best designed with their own object schemata, so each object schema is supported as a series of views of the underlying relational databases. Penguin provides for multiple mappings to diverse object configurations, enhancing inter-application interoperation. This approach supports coexistence and sharing data among programs using relational technology with diverse application programs using object technology, as well as facilitating a migration to object technology.