Scattered database access - Concept and implementation

This paper discusses a new form of network database access with mobile agen t technology where many small database servers are distributed geographical ly, and are accessed through dial-up network on-demand. Coined "scattered d atabase access" here, it enables such interesting ways of data access as as ynchronous, circulatory, and the-more-you-spend-the-more-you-get kind of ac cess. Databases to be accessed are relational databases, possibly from many different vendors, and PDM databases, also from several vendors. Relationa l databases, or RDBs, can be accessed by the SQL, an international standard that allows the interoperability of different RDB products in general. On the other hand, PDM databases, the data-stores for Product Data Management software, are not as inter-operable as RDBs, since the product-specific set of APIs has to be used to access them. An SQL-like language and a parser f ramework have been introduced to solve this problem. By implementing the pa rser as an object-oriented framework, the workload to adapt to many PDM pro ducts has been greatly reduced. The design and preliminary implementation h as been carried out in a government-sponsored GALS project in Japan, and ha s been proven viable in the field, where a large steel-making company gathe ring information from many subordinate companies around the steel plant, an d from other steel companies and equipment manufacturers.