A method, system and article of manufacture for accessing data in a
database independent of the particular manner in which the data is
physically represented and for modeling a physical representation of the
data in the database for architecting a relationship between the physical
representation of the data in the database and a logical representation
of the data. One embodiment provides a method for architecting a
relationship between a physical representation of data in a database and
a logical representation of the data. The method comprises providing the
logical representation defining logical fields; and then providing, on
the basis of the logical representation, the physical representation for
the data, whereby the logical fields defined by the logical
representation provide an abstract view of the data and map logical
fields of abstract queries to respective data in the database.