Managing Time in Relational Databases

Managing Time in Relational Databases: How to Design, Update and Query Temporal Data introduces basic concepts that will enable businesses to develop their own framework for managing temporal data. It discusses the management of uni-temporal and bi-temporal data in relational databases, so that they can be seamlessly accessed together with current data; the encapsulation of temporal data structures and processes; ways to implement temporal data management as an enterprise solution; and the internalization of pipeline datasets.

The book is organized into three parts. Part 1 traces the history of temporal data management and presents a taxonomy of bi-temporal data management methods. Part 2 provides an introduction to Asserted Versioning, covering the origins of Asserted Versioning; core concepts of Asserted Versioning; the schema common to all asserted version tables, as well as the various diagrams and notations used in the rest of the book; and how the basic scenario works when the target of that activity is an asserted version table. Part 3 deals with designing, maintaining, and querying asserted version databases. It discusses the design of Asserted Versioning databases; temporal transactions; deferred assertions and other pipeline datasets; Allen relationships; and optimizing Asserted Versioning databases.

• Integrates an enterprise-wide viewpoint with a strong conceptual model of temporal data management allowing for realistic implementation of database application development.
• Provides a true practical guide to the different possible methods of time-oriented databases with techniques of using existing funtionality to solve real world problems within an enterprise data architecture environment.
• Written by IT professionals for IT professionals, this book employs a heavily example-driven approach which reinforces learning by showing the results of puting the techniques discussed into practice.

IT professionals directly concerned with managing data and providign access to it. This inlcudes data modelers, database developers, database designers, data architects, database analysts, corporate database administrators, SQL programmers, and applications systems developers.

About the Authors Preface Part 1 An Introduction to Temporal Data Management Chapter 1 A Brief History of Temporal Data Management Chapter 2 A Taxonomy of Bi-Temporal Data Management Methods Part 2 An Introduction to Asserted Versioning Chapter 3 The Origins of Asserted Versioning: Computer Science Research Chapter 4 The Origins of Asserted Versioning: IT Best Practices Chapter 5 The Core Concepts of Asserted Versioning Chapter 6 Diagrams and Other Notations Chapter 7 The Basic Scenario Part 3 Designing, Maintaining and Querying Asserted Version Databases Chapter 8 Designing and Generating Asserted Versioning Databases Chapter 9 An Introduction to Temporal Transactions Chapter 10 Temporal Transactions on Single Tables Chapter 11 Temporal Transactions on Multiple Tables Chapter 12 Deferred Assertions and Other Pipeline Datasets Chapter 13 Re-Presenting Internalized Pipeline Datasets Chapter 14 Allen Relationship and Other Queries Chapter 15 Optimizing Asserted Versioning Databases Chapter 16 Conclusion Appendix: Bibliographical Essay The Asserted Versioning Glossary Index