Situation Analysis
Since the beginning of the modern IT era, each period of
innovation has inadvertently introduced its fair share of Data Silos. The driving
force behind this anomaly remains an overemphasis on the role of
applications when selecting problem solutions. Unfortunately, most
solution selecting decision makers remain oblivious to the fact
that most applications are architecturally monolithic; i.e., they
fail to separate the following five layers that are critical to all
solutions:
- Data Unit (Datum or Data Object) Identity,
- Data Storage/Persistence,
- Data Access,
- Data Representation, and
- Data Presentation/Visualization.
The rise of the Internet, and its exponentially-growing
user-friendly enclave known as the World Wide Web, is bringing the intrinsic
costs of the monolithic application architecture anomaly to bear --
in manners unanticipated by many. For example, the emergence of
network-oriented solutions across the realms of Enterprise
2.0-based Collaboration and Web 2.0-based
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), combined with the overarching
influence of Social Media, are producing more
heterogeneously-structured and disparately-located data sources
than people can effectively process.
As is often the case, a variety of problem and product monikers
have emerged for the data access and integration challenges
outlined above. Contemporary examples include Enterprise Information Integration, Master Data
Management, and Data Virtualization. Labeling aside, the
fundamental issues of the unresolved Data Integration challenge
boil down to the following:
- Data Model Heterogeneity
- Data Quality (Cleanliness)
- Semantic Variance across Contexts (e.g., weights and
measures).
Effectively solving today's data integration challenges requires
a move away from monolithic application architecture to
loosely-coupled, network-centric application architectures.
Basically, we need a ubiquitous network-centric application
protocol that lends itself to loosely-coupled across-the-wire
orchestration of data interactions. In short, this will be what
revitalizes the art of application development and deployment.
The World Wide Web is built around a network application
protocol called HTTP. This protocol intrinsically separates the
five layers listed earlier, thereby enabling:
- Use of Generic HTTP URIs as Data Object (Entity) Identifiers;
- Identifier Co-reference, such that multiple Data Object Identifiers may reference the
same Data Object;
- Use of the Entity-Attribute-Value Model to describe Data
Objects using real world modeling friendly conceptual graphs;
- Use of HTTP URLs to Identify Locations of Resources that bear
(host) Data Object Descriptions (Representations);
- Data Access mechanism for retrieving Data Object
Representations from persistent or transient storage
locations.
A uniquely designed to address today's escalating Data Access
and Integration challenges without compromising performance,
security, or platform independence. At its core lies an unrivaled
commitment to industry standards combined with unique technology
innovation that transcends erstwhile distinct realms such as:
When Virtuoso is installed and running, HTTP-based Data Objects
are automatically created as a by-product of its powerful data
virtualization, transcending data sources and data representation
formats. The benefits of such power extend across profiles such
as:
Product Benefits Summary
-
Enterprise Agility — Virtuoso lets you mix-&-match
best-of-class combinations of Operating Systems, Programming
Environments, Database Engines and Data-Access Middleware when
building or tweaking your IS infrastructure, without the typical
impedance of vendor-lock-in.
-
Data Model Dexterity — By supporting multiple protocols
and data models in a single product, Virtuoso protects you against
costly vulnerabilities such as: perennial acquisition and
accumulation of expensive data model specific DBMS products that
still operate on the fundamental principle of: proprietary
technology lock-in, at a time when heterogeneity continues to
intrinsically define the information technology landscape.
-
Cost-effectiveness — By providing a single point of
access (and single-sign-on, SSO) to a plethora of Web 2.0-style
social networks, Web Services, and Content Management Systems, and
by using Data Object Identifiers as units of Data Virtualization
that become the focal points of all data access, Virtuoso lowers
the cost to exploit emerging frontiers such as socially-enhanced
enterprise collaboration.
-
Speed of Exploitation — Virtuoso provides the ability to
rapidly assemble 360-degree conceptual views of data, across
internal line-of-business application (CRM, ERP, ECM, HR, etc.)
data and/or external data sources, whether these are unstructured,
semi-structured, or fully structured.
Bottom line, Virtuoso delivers unrivaled flexibility and
scalability, without compromising performance or security.
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