Object-relational database systems allow users to define new types and functions. This typing extension allows structural semantics to be applied to new data types (non-SQL92 data types). However, defining new, large, complex objects within a tuple is not always practical. Practicality alone requires that large object data structures be used. This implies that predicate evaluation can be performed on tuple columns that are physically stored outside of a tuple's physical record. This out-of-line storage mechanism is commonly used today for column values that are physically large (implemented with a large object descriptor in the tuple pointing to a large object data structure). This type of predicate-based evaluation presents new optimizer and run-time challenges to the database system on clustered and massively parallel processor shared-nothing architectures.

The Prospector Multimedia Object Manager prototype is a general-purpose content analysis multimedia server designed for massively parallel processor environments. Prospector defines and manipulates user defined functions which are invoked in parallel to analyze/manipulate the contents of multimedia objects. Several computationally intensive applications of this technology based on large persistent datasets include: fingerprint matching, signature verification, face recognition, and speech recognition/translation [OIS96].

The Teradata Multimedia Object Manager is a general-purpose content analysis multimedia server designed for symmetric multiprocessing and massively parallel processing environments. The Multimedia Object Manager defines and manipulates user-defined functions (UDFs), which are invoked in parallel to analyze or manipulate the contents of multimedia objects. Several computationally intensive applications of this technology, which use large persistent datasets, include fingerprint matching, signature verification, face recognition, and speech recognition/translation.