Consistency management in a project management assistant

Abstract

Object management systems have been identified as the core of object-oriented software development environments. One of the most important objectives of object management systems is to maintain consistency between the vast amount of interrelated objects, which is generated, accessed, and manipulated throughout the software life cycle. Consistency management in such systems is beyond the reach of conventional database technology due to the complex structure and the incompleteness of data, the dynamic nature of constraints, and the need to tolerate various levels of inconsistency. We investigate the design issues for consistency management in the context of a Project Management Assistant. Our consistency manager organizes constraints into a hierarchy of consistency, and associates a spectrum of management techniques with classes of constraints. The various levels of consistency are achieved by enabling or disabling classes of constraints, and propagating constraints cross the class boundary. The constraint manager is capable of compiling constraint specifications into triggers attached to objects in the object base. The architecture is open to new constraints and new management techniques.