A multi-agent system-based ETL approach for complex data

In a data warehousing process, the data integration phase is crucial. Many methods for data integration have been published in the literature. However, with the development of the Internet, the availability of various types of data (images, texts, sounds, videos, databases,...) has increased, and structuring such data is a difficult task. We name these data, which may be structured or unstructured, "complex data". In this paper, we propose a new approach for complex data integration, based on a Multi-Agent System (MAS), in association to a data warehousing approach. We indeed consider the different tasks of the data integration process as services offered by agents. To validate this approach, we have actually developed a MAS for complex data integration.