Independence and mappings in model-based decision support systems

Independence of applications from logical and physical data structures is one of the cornerstones of modern database systems. Similar concepts may be applied to model management in a decision support system (DSS) to facilitate model portability, sharing, and multi-purpose application. In this paper we define the concepts of model/data and model/ solver independence, present an extended architecture for DSS, and show its implementation. The architecture supports separate solver, model, and data bases and uses mappings to integrate them. Computationally-equivalent solvers support portability, while non-computationally-equivalent solvers allow a model to be used without modification for different purposes (what if, goal seeking, optimization). The implementation integrates an SQL database system with a mathematical modeling language.