Comparisons of three data storage models in parametric temporal databases

Abstract

The parametric temporal data model captures a real world entity in a single tuple, which reduces query language complexity. Such a data model, however, is difficult to be implemented on top of conventional databases because of its unfixed attribute sizes. XML is a matured technology and can be an elegant solution for such challenge. Representing data in XML trigger a question about storage efficiency. The goal of this work is to provide a straightforward answer to such a question. To this end, we compare three different storage models for the parametric temporal data model and show that XML is not worse than any other approaches. Furthermore, XML outperforms the other storages under certain conditions. Therefore, our simulation results provide a positive indication that the myth about XML is not true in the parametric temporal data model.