This is important for maintaining a database system with high availability in a networked workstation environment. Authorized users can also add or remove partitions of the shared database at any time. Dynamic schema modification can significantly reduce maintenance costs. It also is useful in environments where change to data definitions are normal or relatively frequent. It supports both positive and negative authorizations at any level in the class hierarchy.
Authorization extends to classes, instances of classes, attributes, and methods.
Also, inheritance of authorization reduces the work of database administration. Long-duration transactions allow users to check objects out of the shared, distributed database into their private databases. Users can then change the objects in the private databases without affecting the shared database or other users. These changes can be committed to the private database. Then, at any later time, the user can check the updated object or objects back into the shared database.