Using distributed database queries and composable mediators to support requirements analysis

Requirements analysis in a modern development environment needs to take into account product information at all development stages. An integrated product model is used to describe the data used through the development process as different kinds of models and to capture the relationships between them. Due to its diverse nature, this information is usually stored in distributed and heterogeneous information systems. To support the task of require- ments analysis, a distributed data integration archi- tecture called composable mediators is proposed. Composable mediators are a multidatabase system consisting of distributed autonomous object oriented (OO) mediator servers defined in terms of other mediator servers. The complexity of the information model describing requirements data is addressed by the use of OO queries. The distribution and diversity of the data involved is addressed by accessing it through a distributed mediator system. This approach allows not only all related distributed data to be accessible in a timely manner without any changes to existing systems, but also allows the extraction of new information from the available product require- ments related data.