1. A system comprising: a processor-addressable physical memory; and a processor in communication with said processor-addressable physical memory and configured to execute an application operating environment and to allocate an operating environment memory to said application operating environment, said environment memory corresponding to a physical memory and said application operating environment configured to: maintain a database configured to store one or more objects in a database image memory within said operating environment memory; upon instantiation of a database object by a first application, allocate memory in said database image memory for said database object, said database in said database image memory providing master storage for said database object, said first application configured to execute in a first application memory within said operating environment memory, said first application memory process-isolated from said database image memory; upon an instruction to obtain said database object by code of said first application, provide to said first application a reference to said database object; and upon an access operation on an instance attribute of said database object by said first application, provide to said first application a processor-addressable memory address in said database image memory and provide direct access to data of said database object at said processor-addressable memory address.