Centralized management of a distributed database system

Abstract

The invention relates to centralized management of a distributed database system though an object-oriented interface. A gateway (23) is provided between the distributed database system (27, 28, 29) and the clients (21, 22) managing the objects in the system, such as the service management clients in the intelligent network (IN). The gateway (23) knows how the objects have been distributed to different databases within the database system. Responsive to an object request from a client (23), the gateway determines the correct database (27, 28, 29) that can be used to access the desired object(s). The gateway (23) uses database distribution techniques as the source of the object location information. An example of data distribution techniques is the use of a distributed view to different databases using database links. This allows the gateway (23) to be configured using information about entire management systems instead of individual objects, while providing mechanisms to look up individual objects stored in the databases of those systems.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.