Patent ID: 6282537
Filing Date: 2001-08-28
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A system for querying heterogeneous data sources distributed over a network, said system comprising:a plurality of heterogeneous data sources, each of which includes local information relating to a first semantic data context associated with the heterogeneous data source;a request translator associated with each requester, said request translator receiving a request having a second semantic data context and comparing said first semantic data context and said second semantic data context to determine if a conflict between those contexts exists, said request translator translating the request, responsive to the conflict determination, into a query having at least one semantic data context associated with at least one of the heterogeneous data sources;a query converter for converting a portion of the query into at least one command which can be used to interact with a semi-structured data source;a command transmitter for issuing the at least one command over the network to a semi-structured data source;a data retriever for extracting data from at least one of the heterogeneous data sources; anda data translator which translates retrieved data from the data contexts associated with the data sources into the data context associated with the request.