Implementation of federated databases through updatable views

Abstract

We present a new approach to the grid technology that is based on federated databases and updatable views. Views are used in two ways: (1) as wrappers of local servers that adopt local schemata to the federated database requirements; (2) as a facility for data integration and transformation into a canonical form according to the federated database schema. Views deliver virtual updatable objects to global clients. These objects can be associated with methods that present the procedural part of remote services, like in Web Services. The fundamental quality of the approach is transparency of servers: the user perceives the distributed environment of objects and services as an integrated virtual whole. The approach is based on a very simple and universal architecture and on the stack-based approach, which treats query languages as a kind of programming language. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.