How to Implement SOA Data Integration

The first task to be done for integration using SOA is to use SSO or single sign-on to achieve unified login.

　　Bi Internet (chinabyte) January 07 column (zhuzhen)As a service-oriented architecture, the greatest value of SOA lies in the integration of multiple systems. The essence of integration lies in the integration of the data involved in the system. This must involve the integration of databases. If there is no integration between databases, the consequences are unimaginable.

For example, if a new employee wants to join a company, the employee will be involved in OA, human resources system, financial system, and other information management systems. If these systems have been integrated with SOA, the new employee only needs to obtain an ID number automatically generated by the system, and the entry process can be automatically completed in these systems.

In the systems currently used by enterprises, each system may adopt its own organizational structure and permission control. In this process, the first task to use SOA for integration is to use SSO or single-point login for unified login. Otherwise, the data between systems cannot be exchanged due to permission issues. The Interconnection Implementation is nothing more than a dream.

However, when SOA is used for integration, new problems may occur. This is when a system is integrated with SOA, although the employee ID can implement all functions in this system, it may bring various troubles to other systems. In databases used by other systems, you can use SQL to query information related to employee ID numbers by using employee ID numbers as unique keywords. However, when SOA is used to integrate other systems, the keywords used by other systems may not be employee ID, so that each row of data needs to access the process management program, the corresponding employee ID number Re-queries the keywords required by the system, and then uses the New Keyword to work. In this way, if the databases of various systems of an enterprise are relatively independent, and the integration of SOA for interconnection, the implementation effect will be greatly reduced.

For this reason, traditional databases have become a major obstacle to SOA implementation. In this case, new XML databases may solve this problem and help achieve SOA data integration.

The full name of XML is extensible markup language. XML is a simple data storage language that uses a series of simple tags to describe data. These tags can be conveniently created, although XML occupies a lot more space than binary data, XML is extremely easy to master and use.

Unlike access, Oracle, SQL Server, and other databases, XML databases provide stronger data storage and analysis capabilities. This is due to the simplicity of the XML language. XML makes it easy to read and write data in any application, which makes XML the only public language for data exchange. Although different applications support other data exchange formats, they will soon support XML, this means that the program can more easily combine with information generated by windows, Mac OS, Linux, and other platforms, and then it can easily load XML data into the program and analyze them, output results in XML format.

Fortunately, XML-type databases have become very common. The latest products of the three database giants, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle, have begun to support xml. In its DB2 9 version, IBM directly regards XML support as the biggest selling point of its new product. It claims to be the first hybrid database in the industry that supports both relational data and XML data. With DB2 9, you can seamlessly manage common relational data and pure XML data without the need to redefine the XML data format or place it on a large database object. In addition to IBM, Oracle and Microsoft have also promoted their products to achieve high-performance XML storage and query, so that existing applications can better coexist with XML.

It is worth mentioning that Bea, which is in a strong position in the SOA field, also saw this point. Bea acquired flash line, a leading company in the metadatabase market, to make up for the traditional database's SOA service. Bea claims that the flash line metadatabase will become an important part of the BEA AquaLogic product line, enabling it to use the universal metadatabase to track, control, and manage mobile assets, so that these assets can be shared among multiple projects and the business value obtained can be evaluated. It can be seen that the flash line metabase has become an important part of BEA's strategic vision of providing a more unified SOA environment.

Hybrid application of traditional relational and hierarchical data has become an indispensable feature of the new generation of database products, which has made XML support a major trend in the development of databases. From another perspective, SOA does not exist as an independent technology. Due to the needs of SOA integration, the development direction of database products will change fundamentally in the future. From this we can hardly imagine that the true changes in SOA will not only be the application status of enterprise information systems, but will change the overall IT industry landscape.

(The author is a special bynet columnist. This article will not be reposted. This article only represents the author's personal point of view and does not represent the Point of view over the Internet)