An Object-Oriented Multi-Mediator Browser

The area of data integration has gained increased popularity in recent years. This paper describes a data browser for a data integration system where an intermediate layer of a distributed multidatabase system, a mediator database system, is used to query and integrate data from heterogeneous data sources. The data sources can be regular relational databases but also other data producing programs. They often have complex data representations and are often objectoriented (OO). The mediator database layer is therefore also object-oriented for a high abstraction level. An OO query interface is used to access the mediator layer from application programs and users. For a scalable and component based architecture the mediators can be used as servers for other mediators. This leads to a distributed mediator architecture where mediator servers interact with other mediators and data sources. An OO multi-mediator browser, GOOVI, is presented which enables maintenance of such distributed mediator databases. With GOOVI the autonomous mediators in a federation can be viewed, queried, and updated. This multimediator browser also provides user interfaces for integrating data through OO views. The paper describes the functionality and architecture of GOOVI.