An Approach to Resolving Semantic Heterogenity in a Federation of Autonomous, Heterogeneous Database Systems

An approach to accommodating semantic heterogeneity in a federation of interoperable, autonomous, heterogeneous databases is presented. A mechanism is described for identifying and resolving semantic heterogeneity while at the same time honoring the autonomy of the database components that participate in the federation. A minimal, common data model is introduced as the basis for describing sharable information, and a three-pronged facility for determining the relationships between information units (objects) is developed. Our approach serves as a basis for the sharing of related concepts through (partial) schema unification without the need for a global view of the data that is stored in the different components. The mechanism presented here can be seen in contrast with more traditional approaches such as "integrated databases" or "distributed databases". An experimental prototype implementation has been constructed within the framework of the Remote-Exchange experimental system. Keywords: Autonomy, federation, heterogeneous databases, interoperability, resolution, semantic heterogeneity.

[1]  Dennis McLeod,et al.  Object management in distributed information systems , 1984, TOIS.

[2]  Karen A. Frenkel,et al.  The human genome project and informatics , 1991, CACM.

[3]  Randy H. Katz,et al.  View Processing in MULTIBASE, A Heterogeneous Database System , 1981, ER.

[4]  Ming-Chien Shan,et al.  Iris: An Object-Oriented Database Management System , 1989, ACM Trans. Inf. Syst..

[5]  Ming-Chien Shan,et al.  Object Identification in Multidatabase Systems , 1992, DS-5.

[6]  Peter Dadam,et al.  Design and Implementation of an Extensible Database Management System Supporting User Defined Data Types and Functions , 1988, VLDB.

[7]  Dennis McLeod,et al.  An Approach to Behavior Sharing in Federated Database Systems , 1992, IWDOM.

[8]  David Maier,et al.  Development of an object-oriented DBMS , 1986, OOPSLA 1986.

[9]  Michael Stonebraker,et al.  Database systems: achievements and opportunities , 1990, SGMD.

[10]  James A. Larson,et al.  Integrating User Views in Database Design , 1986, Computer.

[11]  David J. DeWitt,et al.  The Object-Oriented Database System Manifesto , 1994, Building an Object-Oriented Database System, The Story of O2.

[12]  R. MacGregor,et al.  Mermaid—A front-end to distributed heterogeneous databases , 1987, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[13]  Stefano Ceri,et al.  Distributed Databases: Principles and Systems , 1984 .

[14]  Maurizio Lenzerini,et al.  A Methodology for Data Schema Integration in the Entity Relationship Model , 1984, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[15]  Eugene Wong,et al.  Multibase: integrating heterogeneous distributed database systems , 1981, AFIPS '81.

[16]  Fernando Vélez,et al.  O2, an Object-Oriented Data Model , 1992, Building an Object-Oriented Database System, The Story of O2.

[17]  Roger King,et al.  Semantic database modeling: survey, applications, and research issues , 1987, CSUR.

[18]  Jay Banerjee,et al.  Composite object support in an object-oriented database system , 1987, OOPSLA '87.

[19]  W. Shipman David,et al.  The functional data model and the data language DAPLEX , 1988 .

[20]  Stephen Hayne,et al.  Multi-user view integration system (MUVIS): an expert system for view integration , 1990, [1990] Proceedings. Sixth International Conference on Data Engineering.

[21]  Timos K. Sellis,et al.  An Organizational Framework for Cooperating Intelligent Information Systems , 1992, Int. J. Cooperative Inf. Syst..

[22]  William Kent.  The many forms of a single fact , 1989, Digest of Papers. COMPCON Spring 89. Thirty-Fourth IEEE Computer Society International Conference: Intellectual Leverage.

[23]  Daniel G. Bobrow,et al.  On Overview of KRL, a Knowledge Representation Language , 1976, Cogn. Sci..

[24]  Amihai Motro,et al.  Superviews: Virtual Integration of Multiple Databases , 1987, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

[25]  Umeshwar Dayal,et al.  View Definition and Generalization for Database Integration in Multibase: A System for Heterogeneous Distributed Databases , 1982, Berkeley Workshop.

[26]  Dennis McLeod,et al.  On Database Management System Architecture. , 1979 .

[27]  William Kent.  Solving Domain Mismatch and Schema Mismatch Problems with an Object-Oriented Database Programming Language , 1991, VLDB.

[28]  Peter Buneman,et al.  Constructing superviews , 1981, SIGMOD '81.

[29]  Witold Litwin,et al.  An overview of the multidatabase system MRDSM , 1985, ACM '85.

[30]  James A. Larson,et al.  A tool for integrating conceptual schemas and user views , 1988, Proceedings. Fourth International Conference on Data Engineering.

[31]  Bertram Raphael.  SIR: A COMPUTER PROGRAM FOR SEMANTIC INFORMATION RETRIEVAL , 1964 .

[32]  Peter Lyngbæk,et al.  Providing Uniform Access to Heterogeneous Information Bases , 1988, OODBS.

[33]  Markus Tresch,et al.  Views in Object-Oriented Databases , 1990, FMLDO.

[34]  P. Fankhauser,et al.  Computing access relevance to support path-method generation in interoperable multi-OODB , 1993, Proceedings RIDE-IMS `93: Third International Workshop on Research Issues in Data Engineering: Interoperability in Multidatabase Systems.

[35]  Dennis McLeod,et al.  Remote-Exchange: an approach to controlled sharing among autonomous, heterogeneous database systems , 1991, COMPCON Spring '91 Digest of Papers.

[36]  Dennis McLeod,et al.  The 3DIS: an extensible object-oriented information management environment , 1989, TOIS.

[37]  Witold Litwin,et al.  Multidatabase Interoperability , 1986, Computer.

[38]  Shahram Ghandeharizadeh,et al.  Design and Implementation of the Omega Object-Based System , 1993, Australian Database Conference.

[39]  Dennis McLeod,et al.  Object flavor evolution in an object-oriented database system , 1988, COIS.

[40]  Sandra Heiler,et al.  Distributed Object Management , 1992, Int. J. Cooperative Inf. Syst..

[41]  Erich J. Neuhold,et al.  Knowledge Based Integration of Heterogeneous Databases , 1992, DS-5.

[42]  Charles J. Petrie,et al.  Enterprise Information Modeling and Model Integration in Carnot , 1992 .

[43]  Arlette Ferrier,et al.  Heterogeneity in the Distributed Database Management System SIRIUS-DELTA , 1982, VLDB.