HD-DBMS: an approach to integrating heterogeneous distributed database systems in the office environment

Abstract

Advances in communication technology and inexpensive hardware are spreading the use of distributed information systems and in particular distributed databases. There has also been a lot of interest and substantial investment in the use of personal computers. This has led to the development of microcomputer based database management systems (DBMS). These DBMS's differ in their underlying data models and their data definition, manipulation and security capabilities. As part of the development of an Office Information System a need was felt to integrate the available microcomputers and their databases. This paper provides an overview of our approach to integrate these heterogeneous microcomputer based database management systems. The innovative features incorporated in the design include:To support the existence of overlapping (non-disjoint) data fragments at different nodes leading to very flexible data distribution options and thus improving locality of reference and efficiency of query processing. To support the existing data models and applications; our system acts as a front-end to the existing local DBMS. To exploit LAN capabilities for query optimization.