A Federated Multi-media DBMS for Medical Research: Architecture and Functionality

This paper identifies two critical problems in providing Database Management System support for medical research environments in general and for research requirements of individual disciplines. The problems identified are that of maintaining multimedia data and providing a uniform interface for various clients. Based on our analysis of the current setup and future requirements, we propose a client-server architecture consisting of a cluster of heterogeneous systems as server and two types of clients -- regular and real-time -- with different functional and throughput requirements. We envision the regular client as a workstation based environment supporting multimedia capabilities. The server is a federation of pre-existing heterogeneous systems that provides uniform and transparent access to multi-media information from the client. Specifically, this paper discusses a client-server architecture that provides multi-media capability at the client side for various purposes. This..