A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in Databases
Changing a database schema is a fact of life in information systems, as a response to changes inside the enterprise (e.g., new users’ requirements, correction of errors in the current database schema) or outside it (e.g., new regulations, new partners’ requirements). In the database research field,...
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World Scientific Publishing
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Computing Open |
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| Online Access: | https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S2972370124300012 |
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| author | Zouhaier Brahmia Fabio Grandi Barbara Oliboni |
| author_facet | Zouhaier Brahmia Fabio Grandi Barbara Oliboni |
| author_sort | Zouhaier Brahmia |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Changing a database schema is a fact of life in information systems, as a response to changes inside the enterprise (e.g., new users’ requirements, correction of errors in the current database schema) or outside it (e.g., new regulations, new partners’ requirements). In the database research field, a well-known technique has been proposed for managing schema changes, called schema evolution. It allows the database to survive schema changes by adapting existing data to conform to the new schema. A lot of research efforts addressed the topic of schema evolution, in both conventional (i.e., relational) and advanced (e.g., XML, stream, NoSQL) databases, providing a plethora of heterogeneous approaches and solutions making up a quite large literature. Since there is no research work that extensively deals with different proposals and compares them, the purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by reviewing the available schema evolution literature. For that, first we collected and summarized the contributions of research papers dealing with database schema evolution. Then we organized their presentation in a chronological order, also giving a historical perspective on the topic development. Finally, we defined a list of six comparison criteria (database model, implementation, schema change semantics, schema change propagation, integrity constraints, and software evolution) that have helped us to categorize and compare the different database schema evolution proposals. In sum, our paper (i) provides an overview of the state-of-the-art research approaches on database schema evolution, with tables that compare such approaches based on some proposed criteria, (ii) studies the support of schema evolution in commercial DataBase Management Systems (DBMSs), and (iii) points out some possible future research directions in this area. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ed3c9f459e2440f99d45fd38193b7595 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2972-3701 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | World Scientific Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Computing Open |
| spelling | doaj-art-ed3c9f459e2440f99d45fd38193b75952025-02-04T03:24:11ZengWorld Scientific PublishingComputing Open2972-37012024-01-010210.1142/S2972370124300012A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in DatabasesZouhaier Brahmia0Fabio Grandi1Barbara Oliboni2Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Sfax, Road of the Aerodrome, Km 4.5, P.O. Box 1088, 3018 Sfax, TunisiaDipartimento di Informatica – Scienza e Ingegneria, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, I-40136 Bologna, ItalyDepartment of Computer Science, University of Verona, Ca' Vignal 2, Strada Le Grazie 15, I-37134 Verona, ItalyChanging a database schema is a fact of life in information systems, as a response to changes inside the enterprise (e.g., new users’ requirements, correction of errors in the current database schema) or outside it (e.g., new regulations, new partners’ requirements). In the database research field, a well-known technique has been proposed for managing schema changes, called schema evolution. It allows the database to survive schema changes by adapting existing data to conform to the new schema. A lot of research efforts addressed the topic of schema evolution, in both conventional (i.e., relational) and advanced (e.g., XML, stream, NoSQL) databases, providing a plethora of heterogeneous approaches and solutions making up a quite large literature. Since there is no research work that extensively deals with different proposals and compares them, the purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by reviewing the available schema evolution literature. For that, first we collected and summarized the contributions of research papers dealing with database schema evolution. Then we organized their presentation in a chronological order, also giving a historical perspective on the topic development. Finally, we defined a list of six comparison criteria (database model, implementation, schema change semantics, schema change propagation, integrity constraints, and software evolution) that have helped us to categorize and compare the different database schema evolution proposals. In sum, our paper (i) provides an overview of the state-of-the-art research approaches on database schema evolution, with tables that compare such approaches based on some proposed criteria, (ii) studies the support of schema evolution in commercial DataBase Management Systems (DBMSs), and (iii) points out some possible future research directions in this area.https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S2972370124300012Database schemaschema changeschema change semanticsschema change propagationschema evolutiondatabase evolution |
| spellingShingle | Zouhaier Brahmia Fabio Grandi Barbara Oliboni A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in Databases Computing Open Database schema schema change schema change semantics schema change propagation schema evolution database evolution |
| title | A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in Databases |
| title_full | A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in Databases |
| title_fullStr | A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in Databases |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in Databases |
| title_short | A Literature Review on Schema Evolution in Databases |
| title_sort | literature review on schema evolution in databases |
| topic | Database schema schema change schema change semantics schema change propagation schema evolution database evolution |
| url | https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/S2972370124300012 |
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