A Metamodel-Based Approach to Information Systems Evolution and Data Migration

The potential impact of model-driven engineering is considerable, and far extends beyond the initial development and delivery of a system. The automatic generation of systems from abstract models also facilitates evolution: the definitive description of structure and behaviour remains accessible, and changes are more easily planned and accommodated. Within the domain of information systems, this is useful only if the data held in the system can be migrated easily to the next version. This paper shows how migration can be facilitated by means of a metamodelling approach, in which a separate model of changes is used as a basis for the automatic generation of semantics-preserving, platform-specific data transformations.