Metadata management is undoubtedly crucial in facilitating interoperability among heterogeneous databases. There is an obvious need for a strong metadata facility that captures important structure as well as semantics. This paper presents our approach to doing this using the Object Management Group's Meta Object Facility (OMG MOF). Its reflective feature and multilevel approach to metativity is very much suited to resolving conflicts among heterogeneous databases. While metadata management and reflection are old concepts, the authors feel that their potential has yet to be fully realized. We provide an example of how the OMG MOF may be applied.
Keywords: global query system, metadata, middleware, multidatabases, schema integration.