QIS: A framework for biomedical database federation

J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2004 Nov-Dec;11(6):523-34. doi: 10.1197/jamia.M1506. Epub 2004 Aug 6.

Abstract

Query Integrator System (QIS) is a database mediator framework intended to address robust data integration from continuously changing heterogeneous data sources in the biosciences. Currently in the advanced prototype stage, it is being used on a production basis to integrate data from neuroscience databases developed for the SenseLab project at Yale University with external neuroscience and genomics databases. The QIS framework uses standard technologies and is intended to be deployable by administrators with a moderate level of technological expertise: It comes with various tools, such as interfaces for the design of distributed queries. The QIS architecture is based on a set of distributed network-based servers, data source servers, integration servers, and ontology servers, that exchange metadata as well as mappings of both metadata and data elements to elements in an ontology. Metadata version difference determination coupled with decomposition of stored queries is used as the basis for partial query recovery when the schema of data sources alters.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Computer Communication Networks
  • Database Management Systems*
  • Databases as Topic*
  • Genomics
  • Information Storage and Retrieval
  • Medical Informatics Applications
  • Pilot Projects
  • Software
  • Systems Integration*
  • User-Computer Interface
  • Vocabulary, Controlled