DTD-to-DB SCHEMA

[lauzon at us.ibm.com]

Thanks for all the response I got from this note.  Two of these
particularly look interesting.  One is the OIM from Microsoft that is
described by Thomas Bergstraesser, and the other is the Metadata
Interchange Specification (MDIS) from the Meta Data Coalition (MDC).

The MDIS seems to be almost exactly what I'm looking for to describe
relational databases.  Unfortunately it doesn't really seem to be in XML,
although they do mention using XML to distribute these MDIS documents.  OIM
has been submitted to the MDC to become a standard, but it seems overly
complex for what we're trying to do, although that might be just because I
haven't had enough exposure to it.  What I'm not sure about is how
widespread support is for MDIS in the XML community, or if there is any
thought about it whatsoever.  Or is the trend for a standard based upon
OIM?

Shawn Lauzon
Department MMB - San Francisco Database Persistence
email: lauzon at us.ibm.com
phone: (507) 253-6966 T/L 553-6966



"Thomas Bergstraesser (Exchange)" <thomberg at exchange.microsoft.com> on
12/15/98 01:39:14 PM

To:   Shawn Lauzon/Rochester/IBM
cc:   Andrew Layman <andrewl at microsoft.com>
Subject:  RE: DTD-to-DB SCHEMA





Shawn,
we have developed the Open Information Model (OIM) a set of over 200 types
that describe meta data in the application development, database design,
and
data warehousing domain. Part of this model is a complete database schema
model for relational, multidimensional, and legacy models.

The OIM is described completely in UML and can be mapped onto different
implementation technologies. The interchange of meta data described by OIM
uses XML and we generate DTDs directly from the UML model. The DTD provides
the tags and structures to describe elements like schema, table, column as
well as cross relationships to components or executables.

We have announced recently that we will move the OIM and its XML
Interchange
Format to the Meta Data Coalition of which IBM is a council member. We are
currently in the process of removing all Microsoft specific information
from
the model in order to make it technology-independent and vendor-neutral. As
its sounds this might be an ideal starting point for your efforts and
provides you with the additional benefit that your schema can be stored in
many existing repositories and displayed by over 60 modeling tools.

Our Web site http://www.microsoft.com/repository should provide you with
all
the necessary information including a downloadable version of our SDK. The
SDK includes the UML model of the OIM, the DTD generator, and the DTDs for
all the different parts of the OIM as well as the necessary import/export
utilities. Note that this is all still focussed on the Microsoft Repository
technology.

I hope this information is helpful for you and I could see significant
benefits if you would be able to align your representation. Feel free to
contact me if you have further questions or need more information.
    - thomas

> -----Original Message-----
> From:   Andrew Layman
> Sent:   Tuesday, December 15, 1998 11:10 AM
> To:     Thomas Bergstraesser (Exchange)
> Subject:     FW: DTD-to-DB SCHEMA
>
> You may want to point them at your work.  Having yet another way to
> describe tables and columns in XML sounds pretty wasteful.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shawn Lauzon [mailto:lauzon at us.ibm.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 1998 11:00 AM
> To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk; ffarahbo at informix.com
> Subject: Re: DTD-to-DB SCHEMA
>
>
> FF,
>
> I work on database persistence with schema mapping on the IBM San
> Francisco project (reusable components -- see
> www.ibm.com/Java/Sanfrancisco/).  Anyway, we're currently working on
> developing an XML interface to our schema mapping tool that allows users
> to update their mappings via XML documents.  It's currently in a
> somewhat-early development phase right now.
>
> What is it specifically that you need to do?  Are there any features
> that would be useful for you?  One of the things we're looking for is a
> standard DTD that can describe a database table (with, for example,
> <TABLE> tags and <COLUMN> tags that would describe the tables and
> columns).  Is there anything that you know of that does this.  Thanks
> ...
>
> --
> Shawn Lauzon
> IBM San Francisco Database Persistence
> www.ibm.com/Java/Sanfrancisco/
> email: lauzon at us.ibm.com
>
>
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