InetSoft Reporting Software - Report Page Regions

“And so let’s now take a closer look at what data virtualization’s simple definition is. Data virtualization abstracts disparate data sources into a single virtual data layer that provides unified access and unified meaning, unified across multiple data sources and integrated data services to consuming applications in real time or right time.

And the way that is done is you are connecting and virtualizing multiple sources combining, transforming, improving data quality, and integrating that information into additional derived virtual views and publishing those views as a data service. So you might imagine a source coming from a mainframe system, a Web service or XML document, a relational database, log files coming from a browser based external Web application brought together into a derived view, and we will see how that works in a little bit more detail.

So the function that this virtual data layer provides is abstraction, which is abstraction from complexities or idiosyncrasies, decoupling from the data itself and the business logic so that the data logic in the combinations of data views can be reused in multiple applications. A logical representation, some people call it the canonical model, and this is useful for even migrating systems or to provide a buffer between applications and the data.

And real time or right time access this effectively reduces links to this point, reduces the amount of replications or consolidation, physical replication you have to do if you are able to provide information on demand. It could be cached, but also you can have scheduled batch updates from the source systems themselves. And generally the biggest advantage of this is you have a lighter agile information architecture which you can transform, change, modify and evolve.” - Mark Flaherty, Chief Marketing Officer