Context Interchange: Overcoming The Challenges Of Large-scale Interoperable Database Systems In A Dynamic Environment

Abstract

Research in database interoperability has primarily focused on circumventing schematic and semantic incompatibility arising from autonomy of the underlying databases. We argue that, while existing integration strategies might provide satisfactory support for small or static systems, their inadequacies rapidly become evident in large-scale interoperable database systems operating in a dynamic environment. This paper highlights the problem of <i>receiver heterogeneity, scalability,</i> and <i>evolution</i> which have received little attention in the literature, provides an overview of the <i>Context Interchange</i> approach to interoperability, illustrates why this is able to better circumvent the problems identified, and forges the connections to other works by suggesting how the context interchange framework differs from other integration approaches in the literature.