I saw an interesting conversation on here about airline reservation systems and the services that connect them (like Sabre).This is an almost identical analog to a problem I've been trying to figure out and I'm looking for the fundamental components required to build a service like Sabre (no this isn't a competing service but something that functions remarkably similar). So the elements of building a Sabre would be:Access to the individual databases (through API I'm assuming) A portal through which a search is enteredThe question(s):Does it matter if the databases are compatible with one another (i.e. all on oracle etc.)? Just how big a project is this? It seems relatively straightforward to someone who's not a database programmer, but I totally know that's naiive. If my company were working to build a service like this (again, not for airline seats but the mechanism is very similar) what would first steps be?To save everyone the snarky retorts, I understand that this is over my head personally, I'm trying to figure out what resources I'd need to get folks who could do it. No, I don't think I can teach myself, I know I need to hire crazy smart folks to do it. This is an attempt to understand the elements I need to put in place to get a start on this. I genuinely appreciate any help folks can give.PS - two links that describe the essential functions relatively well:Airline Reservation SystemandComputer Reservations System
Reverse engineering airline reservations systems
database;api;search engine