Model Management
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The work of the Model Management group aims at developing technologies and mechanisms to support the integration, merging, evolution, and matching of complex data models to support the management of complex, integrated, distributed, heterogeneous information systems.
Overview
Model management aims at developing technologies and mechanisms to support the integration, merging, evolution, and matching of complex data models. This support is required for the management of complex, integrated, distributed, heterogeneous information systems. Basic concepts in model management are models, mappings and operators. Models (e.g. an XML Schema, a schema of a relational database, or an ontology in OWL) describe the structure of data. Mappings represent relationships between elements from different models. Operators are operations on models and mappings (e.g. merging & matching of models, composition of mapping).
The management of metadata is of particular importance for model management. Metadata is data about data and is becoming more and more important as distributed and heterogeneous information systems need to be integrated. Using a metadata-based approach in the design and implementation of an integrated information system increases the flexibility and adaptability of the system, as information about the structure of data models and their dependencies are not hidden in the source code of the system. Instead, this information is captured in semantically rich metadata models, which enable the (re)use of the information in various contexts. Furthermore, a semantically rich representation of data models supports the definition of model management operators.
The following topics are addressed in more detailed in this research group:
- Meta Database Systems: The ConceptBase system is a deductive, object-oriented meta database system. It is based on the conceptual modelling language O-Telos. The system is available free-of-charge for non-commercial purposes.
- Formal Representation of Models and Mappings
- Schema Matching
- Quality-oriented Data Integration
- Semantic Web
Software
- Meta Database System ConceptBase
- We are currently developing GeRoMeSuite, an application for the management of complex models that will be able to match, transform, and merge models of different models. It is based on the Generic Role Based Metamodel GeRoMe and consists of library to represent models in a generic way, a set of atomic model management operators, and a framework to compose these atomic operators to more complex operators.
Further Information
Further Information can be found on the homepage of the working group Model Management
Current projects
ConceptBase
A deductive object manager for meta databases
Cooperative Cars - CoCar
Joint project between Ericsson in Aachen and Fraunhofer FIT
Dataspace Framework
Enabling integrated access to structured and unstructured data
GeRoMeSuite
GeRoMeSuite is a prototype system for generic model management.
MINIMUM: MergINg logIcal scheMas Using Mapping constraints
Merging multiple logical data schemas using schema mappings in the form of data dependencies.
Model Management
Working Group Model Management

