Consider that you have been asked to propose a database architecture in a large organization (General Motors, for example) to consolidate all data including legacy databases (from hierarchical and network models; no specific knowledge of these models is needed) as well as relational databases, which are geographically distributed so that global applications can be supported.

Assume that alternative 1 is to keep all databases as they are, whereas alternative 2 is to first convert them to relational and then support the applications over a distributed integrated database.

a. Draw two schematic diagrams for the above alternatives showing the linkages among appropriate schemas. For alternative 1, choose the approach of providing export schemas for each database and constructing unified schemas for each application.

b. List the steps that you would have to go through under each alternative from the present situation until global applications are viable.

c. Compare these alternatives from the issues of:

i. Design time considerations

ii. Runtime considerations