Bridging Heterogeneity: Research and Practice of Database Middleware Technology

The project MENTAS (Motor Development Assistant) -aims at realizing an interconnected, engineer-oriented development environment for a faster conception and comparative analysis of motors. In order to reach this goal, an integrated access to multi-vendor DBs is provided. In our exhibition we demonstrate how the interconnection of heterogeneous DBs in MENTAS works. After having analyzed the data models of each such DBs, we have brought the heterogeneous schemas into a global, virtual one, which contains just the data relevant for MENTAS. Finally, we apply a commercially available DB middleware solution to bridge the diverse ontologies and hence to cope with these heterogeneous schemas. Furthermore, we have designed a very friendly GUI in Java by means of which users are guided in the process of formulating SQL queries. We show how this interface allows users to issue SQL statements against any DBs incorporated in the federation, to navigate through heterogeneous DBs, and most importantly, to join and compare data in the DB federation. All of that as though all data reside in a