Applying Ontologies in the Integration of Heterogeneous Relational Databases

Aparicio, A.S., Farias, O.L.M. and dos Santos, N.

Interoperability is a key point for integrating heterogeneous computing systems. A usual approach proposes the integration of the conceptual databases schemes into a global conceptual scheme, to resolve syntactic and structural heterogeneity. Moreover, semantic problems can remain. Ontologies have been largely designated to overcome semantic heterogeneity. We propose the specification of a formal ontology about the specific knowledge domain to be shared among several database systems build a posteriori of the ontology specification. We reach this integration through a global scheme, developed as a software layer among the databases under consideration. To test this approach we elaborated a case study, based upon hypothetical queries submitted to heterogeneous databases, with data on soil domain, to identify the soil most appropriate to a certain culture. The results are promising, but crucial, in our approach, is the acceptance for a given community of a common vocabulary and its relationships and that are captured by the ontology and transformed to the target conceptual models.

Cite as: Aparicio, A.S., Farias, O.L.M. and dos Santos, N. (2005). Applying Ontologies in the Integration of Heterogeneous Relational Databases. In Proc. Australasian Ontology Workshop (AOW 2005), Sydney, Australia. CRPIT, 58. Meyer, T. and Orgun, M. A., Eds. ACS. 11-16.

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