We have investigated the use of an object database as a platform for storing and retrieving Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) documents. Qualitative studies convinced us that object databases are a perfect fit for supporting SGML document management. Unfortunately, quantitative benchmark results showed that the particular object database management system (ODBMS) product we used was not capable of supporting large scale SGML applications due to certain defects in its system architecture. The most critical defect was a weak support for location-independent persistent object identifiers. We strongly believe however, ODBMSs in general are perfect platforms and continue the experiment using another ODBMS product. We explain why and how an ODBMS fits well with SGML document management applications, describe how the benchmark experiment was performed and what were the results, and finally present a list of features as a recommendation to those interested in developing or using an ODBMS in support for SGML document management.
['Michael R. Olson', 'Byung Suk Lee']
Object databases for SGML document management