Translating Relational Schemas into Object-based/XML Schemas

This paper proposes an approach for translating an existing relational database (RDB) schema into relatively newer database (i.e., object-oriented, object-relational and XML) schemas, based on available standards. The approach is superior to existing proposals as it generates three different and equivalent target schemas. The solution takes an RDB as input, enriches its metadata representation with required semantics, and generates an enhanced canonical data model, which captures essential characteristics of the target schemas, and is appropriate for translation into any of the three target schemas. To demonstrate the effectiveness and validity of the approach, a prototype has been developed, which realises the concepts and algorithms of our approach, and generates target schemas successfully. A set of experiments has been conducted, the results of which are very encouraging showing that the proposed method is feasible, efficient and correct.