Data Documentation and Retrieval Using Unity in a Universe® Environment
Data Documentation and Retrieval Using Unity in a UniVerse® Environment
Your Name
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa E-mail Address
Introduction
Data storage, however well implemented, is worthless without the ability to retrieve that data. While the logical and physical connections may be available, if the data layout is not well documented, it may be near impossible to retrieve the data except through previously developed interface programs. These programs may be limited in their implementation based on static ideas of their use. In order to implement new interface methods, it is necessary to have complete documentation. It may be possible to use an automated approach to document the tables and fields of a database system This project will explore using Unity[1], and ODBC connectivity to document a large system of tables in a UniVerse®[2] environment. It will also explore using a set of host based programs to generate equivalent documentation, and the modification of Unity in order to produce RETRIEVE queries used by UniVerse® instead of standard SQL queries used by typical ODBC data sources. The remainder of this proposal will examine motivation for the project, the project architecture and associated details.
Motivation
In an ideal situation, a company that creates a piece of software would document it, and understand it before selling it. In the same ideal situation, a company that creates and sells a suite of software with hundreds of tables would understand and document the complex interactions of these programs and tables. Each field of every table would be documented and, hopefully with little effort, that company would be able to tell which programs required each field. However, not all programmers are software engineers, and not all companies that create software do it by using the appropriate methods. The type of documentation described takes time, and time is money, especially in environments where hourly rates charged to customers are
Your Name
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa E-mail Address
Introduction
Data storage, however well implemented, is worthless without the ability to retrieve that data. While the logical and physical connections may be available, if the data layout is not well documented, it may be near impossible to retrieve the data except through previously developed interface programs. These programs may be limited in their implementation based on static ideas of their use. In order to implement new interface methods, it is necessary to have complete documentation. It may be possible to use an automated approach to document the tables and fields of a database system This project will explore using Unity[1], and ODBC connectivity to document a large system of tables in a UniVerse®[2] environment. It will also explore using a set of host based programs to generate equivalent documentation, and the modification of Unity in order to produce RETRIEVE queries used by UniVerse® instead of standard SQL queries used by typical ODBC data sources. The remainder of this proposal will examine motivation for the project, the project architecture and associated details.
Motivation
In an ideal situation, a company that creates a piece of software would document it, and understand it before selling it. In the same ideal situation, a company that creates and sells a suite of software with hundreds of tables would understand and document the complex interactions of these programs and tables. Each field of every table would be documented and, hopefully with little effort, that company would be able to tell which programs required each field. However, not all programmers are software engineers, and not all companies that create software do it by using the appropriate methods. The type of documentation described takes time, and time is money, especially in environments where hourly rates charged to customers are
References: R. Lawrence and K. Barker: Unity - A Database Integration Tool. TRLabs Emerging Technology Bulletin December 4, 2000 [1] IBM: IBM Software: Database and Data Management: U2 product family: UniVerse: Overview. http://www-3.ibm.com/software/data/u2/universe/ [2] [3] R. Lawrence and K. Barker: Integrating Relational Database Schemas using a Standardized Dictionary. SAC '2001 - 16th ACM Symposium on Applied Computing March 11-14, 2001 Las Vegas, USA, pages 225-230.