A 'service-oriented architecture' for data makes sense

How about a "service oriented architecture" for data? Over at the Informatica Perspectives blogsite, I quoted from a presentation given by Madan Sheina, principal analyst within Ovum's Software Applications group, who proposed that a data architecture be designed along the same lines as SOA for applications - in what he calls "process-driven data integration."

"Just as SOA integrates and orchestrates transactional processes and exposes Web services at the application layer, process-driven data integration does the same thing, but at the data layer," he explained at a Webinar in December. Such architecture would play a role in "orchestrating sophisticated data integration tasks packaged up as data services or data integration tasks. It applies SOA principals to the data integration process itself."

Madan and co-presenter Ash Parikh proposed that organizations adopt process-driven data integration, a process in which data integration functions – such as data movement, transformation, or auditing – are made available as reusable data services across the enterprise.

A process-driven data integration approach is essential because SOA and BPM alone cannot address these data issues, they said. While SOA – along with its close sibling, business process management (BPM) – have been very effective in integrating application silos and automating business processes at the application layer, they have been a world apart from enterprise data infrastructures.