Experimental Software Systems: COIL: A Common Object Interconnection Language to Support Database Integration and Evolution

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EIA 9806829 King, Roger McIver, William J. University of Colorado at Boulder ESS: COIL: A Common Object Interconnection Language to Support Database Integration and Evolution Commercial information management technology is about to undergo a massive developmental phase. The emerging global economy has created a dramatic demand for distributed database technology, so that far-flung corporations can manage information that is strewn across dozens or hundreds of incompatible databases. The development of high-bandwidth networking technology has provided the infrastructure for supporting such distributed databases. What is missing is the software to make effective use of this hardware. Currently available software allows data to be accessed regardless of its physical location, but does not provide significant support for interrelating databases that are incompatible in the way they structure data and in the terminology used to describe data. Simply put, current software allows databases to be located at multiple physical places around the globe, but cannot effectively resolve semantic differences. The COIL (Common Object Interconnection Language) project has as its goal the development of a computer language for programming and rapidly evolving interconnections between multiple, incompatible databases. The COIL programming language will allow software applications using mainstream relational database products (such as Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft Access) to be interconnected. COIL will also allow applications to share data between relational systems and newer, more powerful object-oriented and object/relational databases.