M(DM): an open framework for interoperation of multimodel multidatabase systems

The authors present M(DM), an extensible metalevel system in which the syntax and the semantics of data models, schemas, and databases can be uniformly represented. M(DM) consists primarily of a set of metatypes that capture and express data-model constructs in second-order logic: a data model is represented as a collection of M(DM) metatypes. To achieve extensibility, M(DM)´s metatypes are organized into an inheritance lattice. The robustness and openness of the approach are demonstrated by expressing a variety of data models in M(DM), and the authors show how to exploit M(DM)´s metalevel capabilities for hiding representational heterogeneities in multimodel multidatabase systems