Ontology-Based Method for Schema Matching in a Peer-to-Peer Database System

摘要

In a P2P DBS, the databases are often developed independently so their schemas are highly heterogeneous. Creating matching rules (henceforth MR) between a given mediated schema and each peer schema at the design-time is not suitable for a volatile P2P environment; in which, a peer may participate in the system only once. For this reason, the MR must be done at the run-time. Schema designers are often the only persons knowing about the semantics of their schemas. At the run-time, one (or both) schema designer(s) could not be available; hence the user must be able to create the MR to support his/her changing requirements. Given that the semantics of a domain ontology is explicitly explained and in order to help the user to create the MR, we propose a schema matching method based on a domain ontology which plays a similar role as that played by a given mediated schema.