A DISTRIBUTED OBJECT TYPE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR HETEROGENEOUS ENVIRONMENTS

THE INNOVATION DESCRIBED HERE IS THE DEVELOPMENT OF A DISTRIBUTED OBJECT TYPE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM KERNEL, DOTS, THAT PROVIDES AN INTEGRATED, UNIFORM, AND EXTENSIBLE FRAMEWORK FOR STORAGE, RETRIEVAL AND UPDATE OF HETEROGENEOUSOBJECTS. THE DOTS APPROACH INCORPORATES THE FOLLOWING UNIQUE FEATURES: PROVIDES A UNIFORM FRAMEWORK TO INTEGRATE HETEROGENEOUS OBJECTS OF DIVERSE FORMS SUCH AS TEXT, STRUCTURED DATA, AND IMAGE IN A DISTRIBUTED ENVIRONMENT; ENABLES BOTH DATA AND APPLICATIONS/FUNCTIONS TO BE INTEGRATED WITHOUT REQUIRING ANY MODIFICATIONS TO THE EXISTING SYSTEMS; ALLOWS NEW SYSTEMS TO BE DEVELOPED AND INTEGRATED EASILY BY EMPHASIZING REUSABILITY OF EXISTING SYSTEMS. IN PHASE I, A METHODOLOGY TO REPRESENT HETEROGENEOUS INFORMATION SYSTEMS USING THE OBJECT TYPE ABSTRACTION WILL BE DEVELOPED. THE APPLICABILITY OF THIS METHODOLOGY WILL BE ESTABLISHED BY APPLYING IT TO SELECTED SYSTEMS OF A NASA APPLICATION. HIGH LEVEL DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS FOR THE DOTS KERNEL WILL ALSO BE DEVELOPED IN PHASE I. THE THRUST OF PHASE II WILL BE TO DESIGN DOTS IN DETAIL AND IMPLEMENT IT. ALSO, THE COMPREHENSIVE CAPABILITIES OF DOTS WILL BE DEMONSTRATED FOR SELECTED NASA DATA SYSTEMS. DOTS WILL ENHANCE THE ACCESSIBILITY AND THUS THE UTILIZATION OF A CRITICAL NASA RESOURCE, INFORMATION.