Designing ETL Processes Using Semantic Web Technologies

One of the most important tasks performed in the early stages of a data warehouse project is the analysis of the structure and content of the existing data sources and their intentional mapping to a common data model. Establishing the appropriate mappings be-tween the attributes of the data sources and the attributes of the data warehouse tables is critical in specifying the required trans-formations in an ETL workflow. The selected data model should be suitable for facilitating the redefinition and revision efforts, typically occurring during the early phases of a data warehouse project, and serve as the means of communication between the involved parties. In this paper, we argue that ontologies constitute a very suitable model for this purpose and show how the usage of ontologies can enable a high degree of automation regarding the construction of an ETL design. Categories and Subject Descriptors Η.2.1 [Database Management]: Logical design- data models