A translation protocol achieving consensus of semantics betweencooperating heterogeneous database systems

摘要

The paper articulates an approach to resolving the problem ofsyntactic and semantic heterogeneity among disparate pre-existingdatabase systems through the use of a high-level semantic-orientedprotocol for information interchange. This protocol supports many of therequirements of a loosely coupled federation of database systems such asthe need for interoperability and the need to support the client/serverdistributed application model. The protocol aids translation byfacilitating cross database linkages and access on the basis of mutuallyagreeable descriptions of heterogeneous schema constructs which arepassed from a client to a server system. The proposed approach offersflexibility (for example, it can be used for building object-orientedwrappers and interfaces which access legacy relational systems), DBMSindependence, and reusability of inter-model (schema) translationresults