Tag Archives: Real-Time Data Integration
Data Services – The Silver Bullet for SOA’s Data Integration Pitfalls
In the post “SOA’s Last Mile Part III: How to Address SOA’s Hidden Data-Centric Pitfalls Effectively,” David Lyle spoke about some high-level approaches to handling the data-centric pitfalls in an SOA.
I would like to introduce you to the solution…what I call data services, a flexible and cost-effective technology that can be the cornerstone of an SOA and EIM strategy by simplifying the complexity of both integrating diverse enterprise data that exists in individual silos as well as delivering a single, accurate and consistent view of all enterprise information, at the speed of business.
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Data and Processes are Intertwined!
In one of my earlier posts I discussed the need for a sophisticated data services-driven technology serving as the foundation for SOA and BPM.
When I was poking around the web recently, I ran into a powerful statement by Michael Blechar from Gartner, covered in the DAMA keynote, titled Survival of the Data Management Fittest:
“Data and processes are intertwined. It will fundamentally change the way organizations think about your roles, and your roles are going to need to evolve”.
At this year’s Data Management Association (DAMA) International Symposium,
Michael is quoted saying that:
“In this world there’s a very loosely coupled user interface from the assembled services that in turn share access to data. SOA exposes data issues to more people, places and processes, and what I tell companies is that without a focus on information management and meta data management they’re going to fail.”
It is in speaking to numerous customers, prospects and technologists that I had gathered that without accurate, consistent and timely information, SOA and BPM deployments will face serious information-centric hurdles, affecting the cost-effectiveness and success of the project. As we move towards more agile architectures, I believe that we need to grow typical process-centric approaches to include information centricity as well.
As Michael states:
“Where we are going is beyond the first generation of BPM and SOA [that is process-centric],” he said, “to the next generation of SOA that is information-centric.”
Observe that the key word here is “information-centric.” Reading such statements from Michael and many others definitely validates the strategy I have been defining for building out an effective IT infrastructure that can benefit from the flexibility of a services and process-driven approach, in the data integration layer. Simply wrapping data access with a web service does not qualify as a sophisticated data service and hence, stringing together such simple services with a BPM tool also does not guarantee agility.
As discussed in Services to Orient your Enterprise Data Layer, Joe McKendrick is of the opinion that neither SOA nor enterprise-application integration alone can effectively handle the enterprise data layer. However, data services delivered within an SOA framework can create a data-abstraction layer to address the complexities seen across enterprise data environments.
I have always said that without serving up good quality, consistent and timely information as a data service or a comprehensive data service built using a sophisticated data integration platform, SOA and BPM deployments will not be able to deliver on their promise of agility.
What are your experiences? What kind of information-centric issues have you run into in your service-oriented deployments? Is inaccurate, stale and inconsistent information passing through your IT infrastructure holding you back?
It is “All About the Data!”
It is “all about the data” is the response to this blog post by Joe McKendrick on ZDNet
I couldn’t have said it more eloquently than as described below:
“The data is a pivotal piece of an SOA (most IT approaches, really), and is often under-served by SOA initiatives and projects. Data is diverse, duplicated, dispersed, dirty, and just generally chaotic. You need to rationalize it into meaningful business information for the rest of the architecture to work well. This is the data abstraction layer that Ash mentions. This is not an ESB, but rather a data services layer that feeds an ESB and other components in the architecture.”
In my previous posts and in the webinar that this post refers to, I have stated that SOA promises to deliver business agility by breaking down barriers between silos of applications, and by reusing business services. However, in speaking to a number of customers and prospects, it is becoming very clear that if the data stuck inside silos is bad, is stale, or is inaccurate, it does not matter if the most elegant architecture or technology is used. Data is at the heart of the modern enterprise and as pointed out in the referenced blog, data integration is the “pivotal” piece that can ensure the availability of accurate, consistent and timely information.
Podcast on Right-Time Data Integration from TDWI
In one of my earlier posts I mentioned that in order to effectively enable business agility, businesses need access to information at the speed of business, or what is called “right-time” information.
In that post I had also introduced the terms “Right-Time Information” and the “Information Latency Continuum.”
In the recently concluded TDWI World Conference in San Diego, my colleague John Haddad recorded a podcast with Claudia Imhoff where he spoke on data latency issues, including the need to deliver data in real-time so organizations can operate at the “speed of business.”
Listen to John Haddad speak about the “Information Latency Continuum” and the business value of timely and accurate information delivered across a range of latencies, real-time, near real-time and batch.