The objective of this research is to show that commercially available relational database management systems (RDBMS) would be better suited as a platform for integrated, full-phase computer-aided software engineering (CASE) products if they provided more sophisticated data integrity checking. Most CASE product development includes its own data management; those few products which do utilize a standard RDBMS tend to be of smaller and more limited scope. Using a standard RDBMS and an open architecture would allow CASE tools to be developed by persons with broader ranges of expertise and experience, would facilitate new RDBMS advances to be made available immediately to the CASE product without added effort or cost, and would encourage the central CASE data to be integrated with theremainder of the corporate information. The objectives of the Phase I research are (1) to show that all the functionality that is available in current products can be replicated in a RDBMS with an extended constraint management subsystem, and (2) to simulate that subsystem using a commercial RDBMS. A side-effect of these objectives will be to define the minimum set of integrity constraint functions which must be implemented.The potential commercial application as described by the awardee: Database management system technology is clearly advanced and constraint programming languages have been developed. However, no constraint management systems have been effectively coupled with DBMS or CASE tools. Doing so would significantly enhance the capability of existing DBMS and CASE software, thus enhancing their commercial capabilities.
