View Modeling and Integration Using the Functional Data Model.

Conventional database design techniques rely heavily on the designer's skill and experience, which are neither efficient nor effective for large, realistic design problems. A computer design aid can help by storing many design parameters and performing simple pre- processing before design decisions are made. In this paper, we report on the development of such a system. The system is based on a data model called the Functional Data Model (FDM), and on a transaction (or process) model which is specified via the Transaction Specification Language (TASL). FDM is used to define data entities and the relationships between them. TASL is used to capture application processing intent and performance parameters that are relevant to the database design. Logical database design involves two major steps. First, local (or application) views are modeled using FDM and TASL. Second, in order to achieve an integrated database design, these local views are combined and transformed to produce a global conceptual view (schema). This paper describes FDM and TASL; in addition, a set of operations for integrating and transforming local views is presented. A unique feature of these transformations is that they apply to TASL processes as well as FDM schema Finally, an algorithm is given for view integration. This algorithm, along with heuristics and some user-supplied subset assertions, enables the database design system to automatically identify and filter out redundancies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]