Bridging the Gap between Data Models and Implementations: XMI2SQL

The purpose of this paper is to show a novel approach for database design that is agile data modeldriven and service-enabled by developing a software component that generates database schema from a given model. One of the challenges of using modeling techniques for database design is the difficulty of translating a database model into relational tables. Contrary to the current approach that is tightly coupled to a specific data-modeling tool, we need a new translation component that advocates open standard data modeling efforts and can be loosely coupled with other data modeling tools. For this purpose, firstly, a database designer models a database by using a database-modeling tool with an agile data modeling technique. Secondly, a translation component called XMI2SQL converts a data model expressed in UML into SQL. The translation component brings several benefits to the database designers. Firstly, the translation component is compatible with any modeling tool that generates XMI from a UML database model because it uses an open and standards-based format for model data interchange. Secondly, it supports a model-driven approach for designing a database since the visual model for the database is designed first and data definitions are generated from the model. Lastly, the translation component can be reused regardless of heterogeneous platforms and languages since the component was implemented as web services.