This work analyzes the design and implementation issues of Heterogeneous Distributed Data Base Management Systems (HDDBMS). To date, HD-DBMS research projects and implementa tions have been limited. The few such systems which have been constructed provide valuable insight into the nature of problems faced due to heterogeneity. Some of these systems (SIRIUS-DELTA, MULTIBASE, AIDA) , are presented in order to examine their solutions to the problems. The major issues described in the thesis are: the architec ture of the distributed system; query translation; schema mapping; and integration of the schemata within the hetero geneous distributed database, in seeking solutions to these issues, an architecture for a HD-DBMS is proposed
