Implementation Selection for Object-Role Models

The focus of this paper is database design in the context of converting a conceptual data model into an internal representation. For a given conceptual data model, an access pro-le speciies statistical information about (retrieval and update) requests to be performed, while a data proole speciies a statistical characterization of the database contents. The corresponding time/space trade-oo and update/retrieval trade-oo are usually very untrans-parent, especially in the case of large databases with many diierent fact types, combined with complex prooles. In this paper we describe a general strategy for examining the trade-oos for a given application, and for constructing and trying-out several (diierent) databases for the same conceptual data model (multiprototyping).