Furthermore, heterogeneity poses problems that would exist even if all of the DBMSs were 100 percent open and interoperable. Unless a database administration tool is used that understands the open enterprise environment of the organization, synchronization must be done manually. When a data structure changes, quite obviously some application program somewhere is going to need to access that data. Thus, the program must be changed. To reduce errors and enhance integrity it would be nice to integrate the database management tool with an automated software distribution tool.
Integration is definitely on the horizon.
Consider the following scenario. Your database performance monitor hits a threshold indicating a performance problem. The problem requires a database to be reorganized. A trouble ticket is automatically sent to the help desk indicating that performance could be troublesome until the reorg occurs, but it is scheduled at a specific indicated time. The time comes for the reorg to run, and the scheduler automatically blocks all other jobs using that database, then runs the reorg.