Ontology-driven Semantic Mapping

When facilitating interoperability at the data level one faces the problem that different data models are used as the basis for business formats. For example relational databases are based on the relational model, while XML Schema is basically a hierarchical model (with some extensions, like references). Our goal is to provide a syntax and a data model neutral format for the representation of business schemata. We have developed a unified description of data models which is called the Logical Data Model (LDM) Ontology. It is a superset of the relational, hierarchical, network, object-oriented data models, which is represented as a graph consisting of nodes with labeled edges. For the representation of different relationships between the nodes in the data-model we introduced different types of edges. For example: is_a for the representation of the subclass relationship, identifies for the representation of unique key values, contains for the containment relationship, etc. In this paper we discuss the mapping process as it is proposed by EU project STASIS (FP6-2005-IST-5-034980). Then we describe the Logical Data-Model in detail and demonstrate its use by giving an example. Finally we discuss future research planned in this context in the STASIS project.