Towards a Configurable Database Design: A Case of Semantic Data Warehouses

Many modern software systems are designed to be highly configurable. The configuration contributes in managing evolving software and controls the cost involved in making changes to software. Several standards exist for software configuration management (IEEE 828 and IEEE 1042). Unfortunately, making database configurable did not have the same spring as for software even though it can be seen as a software product. Nowadays, we are assisting to an explosion of new deployment layouts and platforms. This situation pushed the database community to admit the slogan: "one size no longer fits all". This motivates us to study the issue to make database design configurable. To satisfy this objective, we need to perform the following three tasks: (i) a deep understanding of the database design life-cycle, (ii) a formalization of each phase and (iii) an identification of the interactions between these phases. In this paper, we detail these tasks by considering the case of designing semantic data warehouses.