Specification and Verification of Model-Driven Data Migration

Information systems often hold data of considerable complexity and value. Their continuing development or maintenance will often necessitate the 'migration' of this data from one version of the system to the next: a process that may be expensive, time-consuming, and prone to error. The cost, time, and reliability of data migration may be reduced in the context of modern, model-driven systems development: the requirements for data migration may be derived automatically from the list of proposed changes to the system model. This paper shows how this may be achieved through the definition of a 'language of changes'. It shows also how a formal semantics for this language allows us to verify that a proposed change is consistent with representational and semantic constraints, in advance of its application.