An integrated database reengineering architecture-a generic approach

Abstract

Methods and tools have been proposed and developed to facilitate database design recovery under the framework of reverse engineering and reengineering. These tools and methods are usually limited to a particular scenario and requirement. They are not adaptive, or general enough, to suit other scenarios. In most cases, new tools and methods will have to be redeveloped to suit these scenarios. This can result in a tremendous waste of effort and cost. In this paper we describe an integrated generic architecture for reengineering legacy databases. The goal of this research is to formalize an integrated generic architecture that is applicable to different database reengineering scenarios and requirements. We examine the conceptual and technical requirement for enabling such an architecture. An overview of the database reengineering process, which serves as a guideline for practitioners and tool developers, is presented. The results of a preliminary feasibility study based on the results of an implementation of relational database reverse engineering tools within the content of the architecture is also provided.