Database Computers—A Step Towards Data Utilities

The concept of the data utility as a database system capable of supporting a data model, a large-scale on-line store, and concurrent user access has emerged in recent years. New technology can make the notion of database computers—a specialized hardware system for database use—a viable one. A summary of previous activities and a discussion of the state of the art of database computers is given. An attempt is made to suggest guidelines for future database computer architecture research.