Security Implications of the Choice of Distributed Database Management System Model: Relational vs. Object-Oriented

Security concerns must be addressed when developing a distributed database. When choosing between the objectoriented model and the relational model, many factors should be considered. The most important of these factors are single level and multilevel access controls, protection against inference, and maintenance of integrity. When determining which distributed database model will be more secure for a particular application, the decision should not be made purely on the basis of available security features. One should also question the efficacy and efficiency of the delivery of these features. Do the features provided by the database model provide adequate security for the intended application? Does the implementation of the security controls add an unacceptable amount of computational overhead? In this paper, the security strengths and weaknesses of both database models and the special problems found in the distributed environment are discussed.