Last August,Object Design Inc explained to us how in conjunction with stakeholder IBM Corp, it was developing a bidirectional, object-relational communications tool called DBconnect, which would enable its ObjectStore object-oriented database to interoperate with relational databases using schema mapping (CI No 2,484). Now DBconnect is being cast as a suite of products. The schema mapping tool will enable relational developers to use it to map table-based data into Open Database Connectivity-compliant objects that can be used under high level languages and other tools. ObjectStore/RDB is a gateway that can access DB2/6000, DB2/MVS, Oracle and Sybase relational databases from ObjectStore. A third DBconnect component, ObjectStore/ODBC, enables high level languages and tools to access ObjectStore data through Open Database Connectivity. Beta versions are out now but AIX and DB2 ships will not begin until next quarter, with Windows NT technology due in July. Object Design, based in Burlington, Massachusetts says it will have a new name for DBconnect by then, too. ObjectStore 4.0 is due next quarter.
