Abstract: A system is disclosed for translating access requests between a format suitable for a relational database and a different format used by an application. When the system receives a data access request from the application, the system accesses a mapping catalog and translates the request based on the mapping catalog. The translated request is then provided to the relational database.

Abstract: A mapping scheme is disclosed so that data can be communicated between a relational database and a system that represents data in a manner different than the relational database. In one embodiment, the mapping scheme uses a mapping catalog that identifies attributes, columns and tables in the relational database that store data for the attributes, and relations between tables in order to determine how to access the attributes.

Abstract: A system with multiple data stores receives a data access request that includes one or more variables. The system determines which data store can service the data access request by using mappings of the variables to the data stores in order to evaluate whether partition expressions for the data stores overlap with the variables in the data access request. The data access request is then sent to the data stores corresponding to the partition expressions that overlap. The partition expressions can have one or more variables. The present invention supports multi-dimensional partitioning.