The design of an integrated data dictionary directory system

As the processes of information system development and maintenance became complex, the needs for controlling and maintaing the processes themselves came out. Data Dictionary/Directory (DD/D) was developed after the experience of the database management system to complement the above needs.Owing to its historical constraints, DD/D had to use the then available tools such as conventional files or databases. It turned out, however, that one cannot overcome some intrinstic deficiency so far as relying on existing tools. In particular, the departure of DD/D from DBMS causes theoretically unfavorable problems.The integrated DD/D (GUIDE (1974)) overcomes these problems. The practical architecture of an integrated DD/D using the self-descriptive DBMS (Hotaka and Tsubaki (1977)) is described with a concrete example.Some efficiency degradation, perhaps intrinsic in the integrated DD/D and DBMS, is observed and the practical method of optimization is stated.