The rapidly growing interest in building multimedia tools and applications has created a need for the development of multimedia database management systems (MMDBMSs) as a tool for efficient organization, storage and retrieval of multimedia objects. We begin with a word about traditional database management systems (DBMSs). Then we present an overview of the MMDBMS research issues, challenges, methods, models, and architectures. We review the state of the art and research contributions from related disciplines. Finally, we consider possibilities and probabilities for MMDBMS research in the future.