Active database systems enhance traditional database functionality with powerful rule-processing capabilities, providing a uniform and efficient mechanism for many database system applications. Among these applications are integrity constraints, views, authorization, statistics gathering, monitoring and alerting, knowledge-based systems, expert systems, and workflow management. This significant collection focuses on the most prominent research projects in active database systems. The project leaders for each prototype system provide detailed discussions of their projects and the relevance of their results to the future of active database systems. * A broad overview of current active database systems and how they can be extended and improved * A comprehensive introduction to the core topics of the field, including its motivation and history * Coverage of active database (trigger) capabilities in commercial products * Discussion of forthcoming standards
