Towards Requirements Engineering of Active Database Systems

Active systems are emerging in many fields, being particularly interesting those like Active Database Management Systems which always provide some kind of reactive capabilities. In this paper, starting from the assumption that activity is an important notion not only for database systems, but also for capturing semantics in the Requirements Analysis and Specification field, we present a model of active behavior that is independent of a concrete database data model, in the sense that the set of events is not predefined (imposed by the database system used), rather it varies with each problem being modelled. We define both a syntax and semantics to formalize different dimensions of active behavior. This approach, first, extends an OO model supporting formal requirements specification and rapid prototyping (OASIS) with active capabilities and second, allows implementing information systems in different architectures by translating the active concepts of our model to those of particular active database systems (relational, object-relational or object-oriented). This is a first step towards a CARE tool for the specification and prototyping of active systems.