Managing grid schemas globally

Abstract

Sharing schemas is a shortcut to data interoperability, while in grid environments there are many difficulties such as schema disagreements and schema evolutions. We propose a new "mappings first, schemas later" schema model, named Grid Schema. The Grid Schema uses the idea of context-free mapping to modularize schemas and its translation rules. This is incorporated into its schema validation mechanism, which enables us to check the compatibility of different formed data. We show the flexibility of the Grid Schema in maintaining global schemas in a distributed, evolving, and multi-cultural environment. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2004.