1. A method, comprising: determining whether a data type associated with a received logical table definition associated with a database query within a distributed database system differs from a data type associated with a local logical table definition; performing a data conversion on data retrieved from a locally-stored physical table referenced by the local logical table definition in response to determining that the data type associated with the received logical table definition differs from the data type associated with a local logical table definition; creating local data conversion information identifying the data conversion performed on the retrieved data in response to performing the data conversion; and forwarding at least one of the retrieved data and the converted data with the created local data conversion information to at least one of a distributed database node and an application-level module.