Multidatabase agents for CIM systems

A general coordination architecture for CIM systems is proposed based on multidatabase technologies. Each component system has an agent which notifies a global coordinator of local operations pertinent to global consistency and, in turn, reacts to operation requests from the global coordinator for the maintenance of global consistency. In order to exploit multidatabase technologies, an agent must provide its component system with the minimum functionality required to apply these technologies. In this paper, it is described how these so-called multidatabase agents are realized in the context of the CIM prototype system, CIM/Z.