SOA and Information Management

The key to a successful SOA delivery model is Information Management.  Information Management supports SOA in that it deals with one of the most important corporate assets - information in both structured and unstructured formats.  Information architecture, a key part of information management, makes SOA more intelligent and manageable.   Ultimately, without a solid and robust information management environment, SOA is limited and presents fewer opportunities for end-to-end business integration and transformation.  Information management, in SOA, places a strong emphasis on technology that integrates structured and unstructured information sources as if they were a single source.

Structured information typically includes relational, XML, or tabular data (such as spreadsheets).  Traditionally, management of structured information falls under the label of data management.  Unstructured information, in contrast, involves free text reports, documents, web pages, audio, video, etc. The management of unstructured information is often categorized as content management.   A unified view of data and content will provide a simplified representation of and access to underlying information services.  Information management in SOA also encompasses data placement and data retrieval.  Information Management is central to a successful SOA and support the required SOA governance.

Group information management functions as composable components and provide them as reusable and callable services.  Without a clear understanding of the information’s intent and value, one could easily make the wrong choices in information management and architecture.  Therefore, there must be a proactive plan to incorporate information management to help remove common problems such as data silos, data inconsistencies, and untapped information assets.

 

To achieve the loosely-coupled view of information sources (both internal and external), information management in SOA accesses and aggregates mixed data and content sources so they appear to the user as if they are one single database or content source.  Information management in SOA acts as a middleware layer between the applications and data sources.  The programming logic for data connectivity, data transformation rules, and data mapping are centralized, and many service consumers can reuse them.   

Lastly, information management in SOA offers extensibility, allowing applications and users to access information not only within the enterprise, but also across enterprise and Community of Interest boundaries. This business and information integration provides agility and flexibility.