The Starburst active database rule system

The paper describes the development of the Starburst Rule System, an active database rules facility integrated into the Starburst extensible relational database system at the IBM Almaden Research Center. The Starburst rule language is based on arbitrary database state transitions rather than tuple or statement level changes, yielding a clear and flexible execution semantics. The rule system has been implemented completely. Its rapid implementation was facilitated by the extensibility features of Starburst, and rule management and rule processing are integrated into all aspects of database processing.