View integration: a step forward in solving structural conflicts

Thanks to the development of the federated systems approach on the one hand and the emphasis on user involvement in database design on the other, the interest in schema integration techniques is significantly increasing. Theories, methods and tools have been proposed. Conflict resolution is the key issue. Different perceptions by schema designers may lead to different representations. A way must be found to support these different representations within a single system. Most current integration methodologies rely on modification of initial schemas to solve the conflicts. This approach needs a strong interaction with the database administrator, who has authority to modify the initial schemas. This paper presents an approach to view integration specifically intended to support the coexistence of different representations of the same real-world objects. The main characteristics of this approach are the following: automatic resolution of structural conflicts, conflict resolution performed without modification of initial views, use of a formal declarative approach for user definition of inter-view correspondences, applicability to a variety of data models, and automatic generation of structural and operational mappings between the views and the integrated schema. Allowing users' views to be kept unchanged should result in improved user satisfaction. Each user is able to define his own view of the database, without having to conform to some other user's view. Moreover, such a feature is essential in database integration if existing programs are to be preserved.>