Despite the growing interest in real-time database systems, references written for academics, professionals, and practitioners who wish to understand the issues involved in the design and development of RTDBS are few in number. This volume attempts to fill this current need. It presents the spectrum of issues that may arise in various real-time database applications, the available solutions and technologies that may be used to address these issues, and the open problems that need to be tackled in the future. With advances in this area, several concepts have been proposed without a widely accepted consensus on their definitions and implications. To address this need, the first chapter is an introduction to the key RTDBS concepts and definitions, which is followed by a survey of the state of the art in RTDBS research and practice. The remainder of the book consists of four sections: models and paradigms, applications and benchmarks, scheduling and concurrency control, and experimental systems. The chapters in each section are contributed by experts in the respective areas.
The text is primarily intended for practicing engineers and researchers working in the growing area of real-time database systems. For practitioners, the text should provide a bridge for technology transfer and continued education. For researchers, it should provide a comprehensive reference for well-established results. The text can also be used in a senior or graduate level course on real-time systems, real-time database systems, and database systems or closely related courses.