Recent perturbations in Data Access and Data Management technology realms are clear signs of an imminent inflection. In a nutshell, the focus of data access is moving from the "Logical Level" (what you see if you've ever looked at a DBMS schema derived from an Entity Data Model) to the "Conceptual Level" (i.e., the Entity Model becoming concrete).

In recent times I've stumbled across Master Data Management (MDM) which is all about entities that provide holistic views of enterprise data (or what I call: Context Lenses). I've also stumbled across emerging tensions in the .NET realm between Linq to Entities and Linq to SQL, where in either case the fundamental issues comes down to the optimal paths "Conceptual Level Access" over the "Logical Logical Level" when dealing with data access in the .NET realm.

Strangely, the emerging realm of RDF Linked Data, MDM, and .NET's Entity Frameworks, remain strangely disconnected.

Another oddity is the obvious, but barely acknowledged, blurring of the lines between the "traditional enterprise employee" and the "individual Web netizen". The fusion between these entities is one of the most defining characteristics of how the Web is reshaping the data landscape.

At the current time, I tend to crystalize my data access world view under the moniker: YODA ("You" Oriented Data Access), based on the following:

  1. Entities are the new focal point of data access, management, and integration
  2. "You" are the entry point (Data Source Name) into this new realm of inter connected Entities that the Web exposes
  3. "You" the "Person" Entity is associated with many other "Things" such as "Organizations", "Other People", "Books", "Music", "Subject Matter" etc.
  4. "You" the "Person" needs Identity in this new global database, which is why "You" need to Identify "Yourself" using an an HTTP based Entity ID (aka. URI)
  5. When "You" have an ID for "Yourself" it becomes much easier for the essence of "You" to be discovered via the Web
  6. When "Others" have IDs for "Themselves" on the Web it becomes much easier for "You" to serendipitously discover or explicitly "Find" things on the Web.

Related