Utilising the MISM model independent schema management platform for query evaluation

Model Management, and its associated operators, provides generic means for dealing with multiple schemas and the mappings between them, for example, in the context of multiple heterogeneous data sources that need to be integrated. One example of a Model Management framework is the 'Model Independent Schema Management'(MISM) platform. In the context of MISM, algorithms and implementations of various operators have been proposed that act on a source-model independent metamodel. However, although the results on MISM indicate how to import and manipulate data from heterogeneous source types, to date no approach has been proposed to utilise MISM for querying across the multiple data sources. This paper presents SMql, a query language over the source-model independent supermodel, presents an algebra into which the query is translated and presents an approach for rewriting SMql queries into source-model-specific queries posed over the corresponding relational or XSD models of the data source to be queried. Thus this paper helps to complete the collection of problems that need to be addressed to allow source model-independent model management using universal models in the context of MISM. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.