In Roads to SOA, Ronan Bradley wrote an interesting piece titled “Data: The Heart of SOA“. He hits the nail right on the head with this article. He writes …

There are two fundamental approaches to dealing with data integration within SOA: Build a global data model for your business which each connecting business unit must bridge into and out of in order to integrate with other units or build multiple data models.

There is a real difference of opinion between the folks who think there should be a single view of the customer and those who advocate a more organic methodology (like a market-based approach). After watching several different companies try to implement a single data repository and overall data model I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. For the most part, they seemed to be political exercises to try and force compliance in using a solution that did not meet the needs of business units. At the same time, there is very real value to be gained through integration and shared resources (especially with business intelligence).

SOA really offers an elegant solution for this conundrum. Individual groups can still run their business-critical applications AND they can be integrated into a single data repository with very little pain for data providers or consumers. Where it makes sense, operations can be pooled and where it doesn’t make sense, they can be seperate but accessible.

For example, it often makes sense to have a global business intelligence solution to minimize costs for licensing and operations. but having your data on different systems can make things difficult. An organization has a business-critical system that runs on an hourly basis and a data warehouse that is updated nightly. An SOA interface allows you to have your cake and eat it too. This won’t eliminate ETL, but it certainly makes it easier to do.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 29th, 2006 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Databases, Information Architecture, Systems Integration, Business Intelligence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.