Bitemporal data : theory and practice

✍ Scribed by Tom Johnston

• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann, , Elsevier Inc
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 372
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Bitemporal data has always been important. But it was not until 2011 that the ISO released a SQL standard that supported it. Currently, among major DBMS vendors, Oracle, IBM and Teradata now provide at least some bitemporal functionality in their flagship products. But to use these products effectively, someone in your IT organization needs to know more than how to code bitemporal SQL statements. Perhaps, in your organization, that person is you.

To correctly interpret business requests for temporal data, to correctly specify requirements to your IT development staff, and to correctly design bitemporal databases and applications, someone in your enterprise needs a deep understanding of both the theory and the practice of managing bitemporal data. Someone also needs to understand what the future may bring in the way of additional temporal functionality, so their enterprise can plan for it. Perhaps, in your organization, that person is you.

This is the book that will show the do-it-yourself IT professional how to design and build bitemporal databases and how to write bitemporal transactions and queries, and will show those who will direct the use of vendor-provided bitemporal DBMSs exactly what is going on "under the covers" of that software.

• Explains the business value of bitemporal data in terms of the information that can be provided by bitemporal tables and not by any other form of temporal data, including history tables, version tables, snapshot tables, or slowly-changing dimensions.
• Provides an integrated account of the mathematics, logic, ontology and semantics of relational theory and relational databases, in terms of which current relational theory and practice can be seen as unnecessarily constrained to the management of nontemporal and incompletely temporal data.
• Explains how bitemporal tables can provide the time-variance and nonvolatility hitherto lacking in Inmon historical data warehouses.
• Explains how bitemporal dimensions can replace slowly-changing dimensions in Kimball star schemas, and why they should do so.
• Describes several extensions to the current theory and practice of bitemporal data, including the use of episodes, "whenever" temporal transactions and queries, and future transaction time.
• Points out a basic error in the ISO’s bitemporal SQL standard, and warns practitioners against the use of that faulty functionality. Recommends six extensions to the ISO standard which will increase the business value of bitemporal data.
• Points towards a tritemporal future for bitemporal data, in which an Aristotelian ontology and a speech-act semantics support the direct management of the statements inscribed in the rows of relational tables, and add the ability to track the provenance of database content to existing bitemporal databases.

This book also provides the background needed to become a business ontologist, and explains why an IT data management person, deeply familiar with corporate databases, is best suited to play that role. Perhaps, in your organization, that person is you.

✦ Table of Contents

Content:
Front-matter, Pages i,iii
Copyright, Page iv
Dedication, Page v
Foreword, Pages xv-xvii
Preface, Pages xix-xxx
Acknowledgments, Page xxxi
Chapter 1 - Bitemporal Data: Preliminaries, Pages 1-13
Part 1. Theory, Pages 15-17
Chapter 2 - Time and Temporal Terminology, Pages 19-33
Chapter 3 - The Relational Paradigm: Mathematics, Pages 35-41
Chapter 4 - The Relational Paradigm: Logic, Pages 43-58
Chapter 5 - The Relational Paradigm: Ontology, Pages 59-78
Chapter 6 - The Relational Paradigm: Semantics, Pages 79-97
Chapter 7 - The Allen Relationships, Pages 99-115
Chapter 8 - Temporal Integrity Concepts and Notations, Pages 117-126
Chapter 9 - Temporal Entity Integrity, Pages 127-139
Chapter 10 - Temporal Referential Integrity, Pages 141-158
Part 2. Practice, Pages 159-163
Chapter 11 - Temporal Transactions, Pages 165-185
Chapter 12 - Basic Temporal Queries, Pages 187-203
Chapter 13 - Advanced Temporal Queries, Pages 205-223
Chapter 14 - Future Assertion Time, Pages 225-240
Chapter 15 - Temporal Requirements, Pages 241-260
Chapter 16 - Bitemporal Data and the Inmon Data Warehouse, Pages 261-276
Chapter 17 - Semantic Integration via Messaging, Pages 277-289
Chapter 18 - Bitemporal Data and the Kimball Data Warehouse, Pages 291-313
Chapter 19 - Time, Types and the Future of Relational Databases, Pages 315-336
Chapter 20 - Recommendations, Pages 337-342
Afterword: Reflections on Mindfulness and Bitemporality, Pages 343-345
Bibliography, Pages 347-357
Index, Pages 359-367