Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
All of these questions are important to modern businesses. In many industries,
collaboration and the efficient flow of information between organizations is critical.
For example, Just-In-Time techniques (Toyota MMK 2006) aim to improve the effi-
ciency of a supply chain and to do this effectively they need access to up to date
information from multiple organizations.
The capabilities mentioned in this section focus on addressing the challenges
of accessing, integrating and utilising existing data that may be heterogeneous and
originate from multiple business partners in a value network. They enable solutions
for facilitating access to remote data sources, for homogenizing the treatment of data
sources, and for synchronising multiple data sources. Reference implementations of
these have been developed over OGSA-DAI platform. The latter is contributed by
the Open Grid Services Architecture - Data Access and Integration (OGSA-DAI)
project (http://www.ogsadai.org.uk), a part of the Open Middleware Infrastructure
Institute UK (OMII-UK, http://www.omii.ac.uk/).
More specifically the following common capabilities have been identified and
developed over OGSA-DAI:
•
Data Source Publisher
: This capability simplifies the set-up of existing grid
middleware by allowing a source of data to be published over web services. It
also reduces the ease of use OGSA-DAI, hence lowering the overall entry cost.
•
OGSA-DAI Trigger
: This capability enhances OGSA-DAI with new data inte-
gration features and allows for automated data integration using OGSA-DAI.
Underpinning this capability is innovation that allows executing an event-driven
OGSA-DAI workflow when a database changes.
•
JDBC Driver
: This capability offers a new interface for OGSA-DAI that allows
enhanced data integration in existing applications and makes integrated data
resources appear as a simple database.
•
OGSA-DAI SQL views
: This capability allows adapting an existing data source
for use in a Data-Grid; it enables a view that is independent of the data source
and appropriate for use in a Data-Grid without affecting the original data-source.
The results in the Data Management area offer new opportunities for collaboration
between business partners by enabling access to sources of information, reducing
costs due to better integration of data across sites and enabling the development of
simpler data-oriented applications. They also improve the OGSA-DAI framework
with a more comprehensive data integration capability and reduce the barriers to
adopting OGSA-DAI in business environments.
The results in the Data Management have been validated in a BE demonstrating
the use of Data-Grid technologies for affordable data synchronization and SME
integration within B2B networks summarized in BE24 (2009). Some aspects were
also validated in a BE demonstrating improvements to the competitiveness of
textile industry gained by implementing a SOI between textile firms and technology
provider that focused on offering high end services such as production scheduling,
global resource scheduling and virtual retailing. Other aspects were validated in
a BE focusing on supporting post-production workflow enactment in the film
industry, summarized in BE02 (2009).
