Patent ID: 8639670

Claim:
A data integration apparatus collecting and integrating data in a plurality of information sources, comprising: a storing unit that stores meta information that includes: a physical model, which is a model corresponding to each information source and includes data items and a primary key constraint for a data item that serves as a primary key, a logical model, which is a data model defined for a utilization-side application utilizing integrated data and includes data items and a primary key constraint for a data item that serves as a primary key, and a mapping definition that defines a correspondence relation between a data item of the physical model and a data item of the logical model as a correspondence relation between a FROM column and a TO column; a converting unit that receives a search condition for the logical model from the utilization-side application and converts the search condition for the logical model into one or a plurality of search conditions for the physical model based on the meta information; a collecting unit that issues the search condition for the physical model to an information source and collects from the information source physical-model-compliant data matching the search condition for the physical model; an outputting unit that integrates data by converting, based on the meta information, the collected physical-model compliant data into logical-model-compliant data and outputs the logical-model-compliant data to the utilization-side application; and a cleansing controlling unit that determines whether a type of the data item in the FROM column is the same as a type of the corresponding data item in the TO column, and if not, a type conversion processing unit attempts to convert the data item in the FROM column and the corresponding data item in the TO column to the same type.