Beyond Relations: A Case for Elevating to the Entity-Relationship Abstraction

TL;DR

The paper advocates for relational databases to adopt the entity-relationship model to enhance logical data independence and enable more innovation, supported by a prototype system called ErbiumDB.

Contribution

It introduces the case for shifting from object-relational to entity-relationship models in RDBMSs and presents the design of a prototype system to explore this transition.

Findings

Current RDBMSs lack sufficient logical data independence.

A prototype system, ErbiumDB, demonstrates the feasibility of the entity-relationship model.

The shift could enable significant innovation in database systems.

Abstract

Spurred by a number of recent trends, we make the case that the relational database systems should urgently move beyond supporting the basic object-relational model and instead embrace a more abstract data model, specifically, the entity-relationship model. We argue that the current RDBMSs don't inherently support sufficient "logical" data independence, and that is relegating the database systems to the role of a backend storage system, away from where significant innovation is both happening and is still needed. We present the design of a prototype system (ErbiumDB) that we are building to explore these issues, and discuss some of the key research challenges.