Schema Matching Demonstrator

Overview

This repository contains an educational demonstrator application for a schema matching approach.

It provides a full-stack web application that offers a short interactive introduction to schema matching and allows users to experiment with automated schema matching between heterogeneous data schemas.

Included Demonstrator Content

The frontend includes several interactive and explanatory elements, such as:

• introductory explanations of schema matching
• visual diagrams illustrating preprocessing and matching workflows
• interactive demonstrations of preprocessing and matching techniques
• puzzle- and game-like UI components for illustrating matching concepts
• example data schemas used throughout the demonstrator

Note: The original research prototype for schema matching is not included in this public repository. This version only contains the demonstrator interface and example data used for the interactive tutorial.

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Architecture & Infrastructure

The system follows a client–server architecture.

• Frontend framework: Vue.js with Quasar
• Backend Framework: Flask
• Docker / Docker Compose for containerized execution
• Separate configurations for production and development

Many of the interactive visualizations rely on the great VueFlow library.

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Repository Structure

schema-matching-demo/
├── server/                  # Flask backend and demo data generation
│   ├── app.py               # Backend entry point
│   ├── data_gen/            # Demo data generation and preprocessing logic
│   ├── utils/               # Backend utility functions
│   ├── env.yaml             # Conda environment definition
│   └── pyproject.toml       # Python project metadata
│
├── webapp/                  # Quasar/Vue frontend
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── pages/           # Main application pages
│   │   ├── components/      # Reusable UI components
│   │   ├── layouts/         # Application layouts
│   │   ├── router/          # Frontend routing
│   │   └── assets/          # Images and visual assets for the demonstrator
│   └── nginx/               # Nginx configuration for containerized deployment
│
├── docker-compose.yml       # Production setup
├── docker-compose.dev.yml   # Development setup
├── LICENSE
└── README.md

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Prerequisites

For Docker-based execution

• Docker
• Docker Compose

For manual development setup

• Python (via Conda)
• Miniconda
• Node.js 20
• npm
• Java 11
• Quasar CLI

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Quick Start (Docker)

Install:

• https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/
• https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/

Move to the project directory:

cd .../schema-matching

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Run production mode

docker compose up

The application runs on:

http://localhost:6060/

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Run development mode

docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up

Services:

Frontend

http://localhost:9000/

Backend

http://localhost:5000/

Additional commands

# Start in background
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d

# Start with rebuild
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build

#Stop containers
docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml down

# Remove all containers
docker rm -fv $(docker ps -aq)

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Manual Development Setup

System update

sudo apt update

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Backend (Flask)

Create Conda environment

Install Miniconda:

https://docs.anaconda.com/miniconda/

cd .../schema-matching/server

conda env create -f env.yml
conda activate smd-env

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Install Java 11 (required)

Check installation:

java -version

Install if necessary:

sudo apt install openjdk-11-jre

Verify installation:

java -version

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Start Flask server

flask run --port=5000 --debug

Backend endpoint:

Backend endpoint:

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Frontend (Vue / Quasar)

Install Node.js 20

cd .../schema-matching/webapp/

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.0/install.sh
 | bash
nvm install 20

node -v
npm -v

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Install dependencies

Install Quasar CLI:

npm install -g @quasar/cli

Install project dependencies:

npm install

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Start development server

quasar dev

Frontend endpoint:

Frontend endpoint:

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Configuration

Container configuration is managed through Docker Compose and the corresponding Dockerfiles.

• docker-compose.yml – production setup
• docker-compose.dev.yml – development setup

The container images are defined in the following Dockerfiles:

• server/Dockerfile_prod – backend production image
• server/Dockerfile_dev – backend development image
• webapp/Dockerfile – frontend image

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License

BSD 3-Clause License