Modeling Architecture

Information systems that provide interoperation and varying degrees of integration among multiple databases have been termed multidatabase systems (Hurson et al., 1994), federated databases (Heimbigner and McLeod, 1985), and more generically, heterogeneous distributed database systems. An attempt to relate some of the frequently used terms, using the fundamental dimensions of distribution, heterogeneity, and autonomy, was presented in (Sheth and Larson, 1990). The term “federated database system” is used to imply the role of the autonomy as discussed in (Sheth and Larson, 1990). Other perspectives and overviews can be found in (Elmagarmid and Pu, 1990) (Ozsu and Valduriez, 1991) (Bukhres and Elmagarmid, 1996) (Hsiao et al., 1993) (Litwin et al., 1990) (Litwin, 1994).