Long-term database support for EXPRESS data

The data modeling language STEP/EXPRESS enjoys a spreading popularity beyond engineering. Its structural object orientation, for instance, is appropriate for scientific and statistical database (SSDB) modeling as well. As our database prototype illustrates, EXPRESS can also be used for data definition. Following the STEP approach, data manipulation is done via SDAI (Standard Data Access Interface). Besides increasing awareness of evolving STEP technology, this paper elaborates on a common issue of both engineering databases and SSDBs: the long-term retention of vast amounts of data. The storage of massive data over decades imposes serious problems on any DBMS. Application-oriented database archiving helps solve them. We indicate how to exploit and enhance SDAI to make it an archive interface