Other database vendors already sell middleware for linking databases. The drawback to such products is that they're designed for centralized data management, a concept that doesn't work well in many companies, Stonebraker says. Cohera's software gives departmental database administrators control over their systems while providing some level of central management.

Cohera's Data Federation System is a commercial adaptation of technology developed at the University of California at Berkeley, where Stonebraker is a computer science professor. Stonebraker founded database developer Ingres Corp., now a part of Computer Associates, and object-relational database supplier Illustra Information Technologies Inc., acquired by Informix Corp. in 1996. He is also chief technology officer of Informix.

Beta testers of Cohera's software include Cisco Systems, Deloitte Consulting, and Federal Express. Cisco sees the software as a potential replacement for a "global extraction system" it uses to consolidate data from operational systems, including Oracle financial applications and Cisco's service-call tracking system.

"We would like to present to the [user] an easy way that they can request data without having to know where it's coming from," says Dale Seavey, Cisco's senior manager of technology for IT.