The implementation of a multi-lingual database system--multi-backend database system interface.

Abstract

The limitations of the traditional Database Management System (DBMS) have become increasingly clear in recent years. Some of these limitations are interface inflexibility for user accesses, mono-lingual restriction in data languages, performance degradations over time, and excessive costs in upgrading. Two complementary approaches to the DBMS design and implementation— the multi-lingual database system (MLDS) and the multi-backend database system (MBDS)~effectively deal with the limitations of the traditional DBMS approach. MLDS offers a multi-lingual capability to the DBMS environment, thus freeing the user from the limitations and inflexibility of the single-data-model- and-language approach. MBDS. by contrast, is designed to deal with the issues of performance degradation and upgrading costs by providing a parallel processing capability, and utilizing replicated software and identical hardware for expansion. System upgrades with MBDS have been shown to provide an essentially proportional performance gain-to-upgrade-cost ratio. In this thesis, we present the implementation of an interface between MLDS and MBDS. Specifically, we present the procedures which create the Template and Descriptor Files in MLDS that are required \>y MBDS. Additionally, we describe the integration process tying these two systems together.