A method of converting a source database system to a destination database system includes importing system tables and semantic metadata from the source database system, parsing the imported semantic metadata and identifying associations between table elements of the imported system tables, generating a conversion scheme in the metadata database, and defining an attribute in the conversion scheme in accordance with a metadata model of the destination database system for each association identified. Defining each attribute may include identifying additional attributes, determining an inter-cardinality between table elements, setting an intra-cardinality between a table element of the additional attribute and a specified table element of the attribute in a same imported system table, defining a relationship between the attribute and the additional attribute according to the inter-cardinality and the intra-cardinality, and grouping together the specified table elements and any defined relationships in a metadata definition of the attribute in the conversion scheme.