Heterogeneity in Model Management: A Meta Modeling Approach

As models are always abstractions of reality, we often need multiple modeling perspectives for analysis. The interplay of such modeling perspectives can take many forms and plays a role both at the design level, and during the operation of information systems. Examples include viewpoint resolution in requirements management, mapping between conceptual and implementation design in databases, and the integration or interoperation of multiple data and media sources. Starting from early experiences with our now 20-year old ConceptBase implementation of the Telos language, we describe a logic-based conceptual modeling and model management approach to these issues, focusing on recent work which employs a generic meta model to facilitate mappings and transformations between heterogeneous model representations both at the schema and the data level.