| Abstract: | The paper describes a software infrastructure that was built to manage information in a co-operative environment for the design of control systems. The architecture of the environment, the organization of the design database and a suite of information management tools are presented. The paper suggests that the distributed client–server architecture and object database technology meet the requirements of managing information in the environment. The following issues related to information management are examined in more detail: support for version control, maintenance of information integrity by means of object access control and consistency control, support for user co-operation based on object sharing and change notification, graphical user interfaces, and design tool interfaces. Problems encountered during the implementation of the environment using a commercial object database management system are also discussed. |
