Introduction

Abstract

Organizations all over the world rely on a wide variety of databases to conduct their everyday business. Large organizations use databases that operate on a variety of platforms including mainframes, workstations, and servers configured as a corporate Intranet. Historically, databases have been designed from scratch if none were found to meet the organization’s requirements. This has led to a proliferation of databases — all of which obey different sets of requirements for modeling identical or similar world objects. In many instances, and because of a lack of any organized conglomeration of databases, users typically create their own pieces of information that may be present in existing databases.