Almost all applications today utilize databases in one form or another. Traditional database indexing schemes are not suitable for managing these index structures. Also, the required correctness properties in the presence of updates are not supported by any of the built-in transactional support available in traditional databases. In workflow applications, data consistency is important, but so is the conformance with the steps involved in the process defined by the workflow. The data-centric approach taken by databases makes them inappropriate, as is, for workflow applications.
Multimedia databases involve data items which are of continuous types.
Their usage patterns are very different from applications for which LRU buffer management policies are suited. The data items are also large and when they are updated, it is inefficient to log the contents of the whole object for recovery purposes. To store, retrieve and manage such massive amounts of digital data, hierarchical storage systems are to be used to achieve a better price-performance ratio. Traditional schemes for query optimization are not suitable for such systems. Embedded applications often involve the use of data with validity intervals attached to them.