Supporting a Semantic Data Model in a Distributed Database System
Arvola Chan, Umeshwar Dayal, Stephen John Fox, Daniel R. Ries · 1983
Existing distributed database systems are based mostly on the relational model. Further-more, it has been argued that the relational model is the model best suited for distributed databases. This paper describes an implementa-tion approach for supporting logical pointers between distributed entities. This apprdach is being employed in a distributed database system that supports a semantically rich data model and that currently is under implementation. The access structures used to support entity-to-entity pointers in this data model facilitate the maintenance of referential integrity across sites. At the same time, they provide efficient access paths for distributed query processing. To make use of these access structures the exten-sions required of existing query processing tech-niques are quite straightforward. The research reported in this paper is support-