A modular or even component-based design is state-of-the-art in application development. But both object-relational database management systems and the object-relational standard SQL:1999 lack proper abilities supporting a modular schema design – the prerequisite for a component-based schema design. Nevertheless, the high effort required for an object-relational schema design strictly demands for a modular schema design. This paper describes the challenges of such a schema design and gives a vision of how a modular, object-relational schema design should look like.
