Composite Data Services
for SOA
White Paper: Critical Need for Data Services When Building an SOA
. .
Break
the data bottleneck to achieve SOA objectives
Data Services: The Key to SOA Data Integration
You are not alone if you’ve discovered that a big bottleneck
to achieving the SOA promise is how to properly integrate your
data. Most new applications, SOA or not, utilize data from
an existing systems foundation. This data is complex, diverse
and spread across the enterprise in various technology and application
silos. Each source has its own access mechanisms, syntax, security,
etc., and few are structured properly for consumption, let alone
reuse.
Data services overcome these bottlenecks. Data services are
a form of Web service, optimized for the real-time data integration
demands of SOA. Data services virtualize data to decouple
physical and logical locations and therefore avoid unnecessary
data replication. Data services abstract complex data structures
and syntax. Data services federate disparate data into
useful composites. Data services also support data integration
across both SOA and non-SOA applications.
Data Services Layer: Critical Architecture Component
Architecturally,
data services combine to form a middle layer of reusable services,
or a data services layer, decoupled from both the underlying
source-data layer as well as the consuming solutions layer. This provides the flexibility required to deal with
each layer in the most effective manner, as well as the agility
to work quickly across layers such as applications, schemas or
underlying data sources change. According to industry analyst
firm AMR Research, “No SOA plan is complete without a data
services layer.”
<Composite Data Services Demo>
Three Tier Data Services Landscape
Wrapping Existing Data and ESBs are Insufficient
If all you need is to access existing data from a single source,
then wrapping the data before presenting it within the SOA
may be sufficient. However, if you need to virtualize,
abstract and federate disparate data from multiple complex
sources, then you will need a robust solution for heavy-duty
data integration.
ESBs are sometimes incorrectly associated with queries. ESBs
provide a valuable messaging mediation infrastructure within
a SOA. However, they optimize messaging, not queries, lacking
critical data integration capabilities including virtualization,
abstraction, and federation.
For optimal SOA data integration, use an ESB to mediate the
optimized data services that have been built and run in the Composite
Information Server. This complementary use of technology
provides the following benefits:
- Design Time. Composite’s
easy-to-use data modeling is critical for understanding complex
data sets from disparate sources. Automated data service
code generators accelerate development by tenfold. As
your data sources grow in number and complexity, these tools
become even more critical. Data services can be composited
with other services authored to run in an ESB.
- Run Time. Although ESBs have limited
query optimization capabilities that are insufficient for large
data sets and/or high performance use cases, information servers
are designed to optimize large queries at speed and therefore
work in tandem with ESBs in a SOA infrastructure.
Best of Breed Versus Platform
SOA platform vendors such as IBM and BEA Systems provide solutions
that include an ESB, an application server and other tools.
While a single vendor affords convenience at the time of purchase,
a “one size fits all” approach typically comes
with functionality compromises.
Therefore, savvy enterprises find and use the best
application server, information server, ESB, governance application,
and more from vendors with the highest quality technology available.
By buying best-of-breed, you can add to your infrastructure as
your business and IT needs dictate. Of course, this requires
that your SOA infrastructure components interoperate with multiple
vendors’ products.
<SOA Data Services vs Transaction Services Demo>
The Composite Advantage
Composite provides a complete, best-of-breed data integration
solution for SOA data services.
- Web Service
Enable Existing Data Assets. Virtualize,
abstract, and federate existing data for use in your SOA.
Automatically generate data services directly from data models
and metadata. Leverage
pre-built data services for SAP, Oracle EBS, Siebel, Salesforce.com
and more.
- Data Services Layer. Create a layer for reusable
data services within your SOA. Easy to consume directly or
composite with other services. Standards-compliant.
- Integration Ready. Optimized for data integration
across your diverse sources and consumers. Works with any application
server, BPM, ESB, and governance middleware. No dependencies.
How Composite Provides Data Services
The Composite Information server is the foundation of Composite’s
data services solution. You can start with a single SOA
project and extend Composite across your enterprise SOA, flexibly
adding reusable data services as your needs grow.
At design time, the Composite Information Server is an easy-to-use
data modeler and code generator for creating data services with
a few simple clicks.
At run time, the Composite Information Server is a high-performance
query and federation engine that works equally well with tabular
(SQL) and hierarchical (XML) data.
The Composite Information server works directly with multiple vendors’ key
SOA components such as application servers, ESBs, BPMs, governance
and others.
See Figure – SOA Landscape Model
Figure: SOA Landscape Model
Composite Data Services In Action
Composite is proven at innovative customers like Wall Street
investment banks, large pharmaceuticals, and the US Federal
government.
- Single View of a “Person of Interest”. Intelligence
data spread across multiple intelligence agencies leverage
a shared data services layer enabling analysts to get a complete
picture on persons of interest.
- Financial Research Data Services Layer. Data
services form a middle layer between a multi-terabyte financial
research database and a variety of Matlabs analytical and custom
financial engineering applications. Analysts spend less time
on access and more time on analysis resulting in higher investment
returns.
- Reporting Data Services Layer. Multiple
reporting requirements including Prime Brokerage, Reconciliation,
Risk Management, etc., share a common set of data services
to accelerate new reporting development while improving reporting
accuracy.
Go to the following links to better understand where Composite
data integration can support your upcoming SOA projects.
The Bottom Line
Data services break the data integration bottleneck that slows
down most SOA development projects. Given today’s
complex and multiple source data environments, simple wrapping
and ESBs alone cannot support the heavy-duty query requirements. Only
Composite’s best-of-breed solution provides the critical
data virtualization, abstraction and federation capabilities
you need to provide the robust data services and layer your SOA
requires. With Composite data services you can achieve your SOA
objectives sooner, for less.
