Re: Ontology for Relational Database Metadata

On 3/26/13 11:49 AM, Michael Schmidt wrote:
> Dear LOD community,
>
> we're currently looking for an ontology to describe relational database metadata. In the D2RQ vocabulary and in the R2RML standard, there are some simple concepts for representing databases and tables, yet what we're looking for goes far beyond what can be expressed with these vocabularies: we are looking for a schema allowing us to describe the internal structure of relational databases, including database meta information (database type, version number, ...), table names, attributes and associated datatypes, key and foreign key relationships, indizes, and the like.
>
> If anyone is aware of ontologies covering this subject, we would be glad to get some pointers.
>
> Best regards,
> Michael Schmidt
>
>
>
We haven't had time to build such a thing, but this really an ontology 
for ODBC (Open Database Connectivity). Certainly a worthwhile effort.

Note: there is no richer API for SQL based RDBMS abstraction than ODBC. 
Take a close look at its metadata aspect via its metadata oriented APIs.

Also note the INFO Schema tables which are increasingly standardized 
across RDBMS products. Thus, by using existing R2RML mappings against 
said schema tables you end up with a good amount of what you need. The 
rest will have to come the ODBC specs.

Hope that helps.

-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
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