Oracle Data Service Integrator Documentation > Data Services Developer's Guide

Data in the 21st Century

In modern enterprises data is generally readily available. While this has reduced the need to move physical data into data warehouses, data marts, data mines, or other costly replications of existing data structures, the problems of dynamic data integration, immediate secured access and update, data transformation, and data synchronization remain some of the most vexing challenges facing the IT world.

Oracle Data Service Integrator provides a comprehensive approach to this challenge by:

• Providing a unified means of importing metadata representing the structure of any data source using its Metadata Import wizard.
• Allowing for the creation of hierarchical data structures from tradition column-row data.
• Providing a query-driven interface to extend the physical model so data specialists can create powerful transformations of existing data and queries.
• Automatically creating data models that introspect physical data structures (and their contents) in situ, normalizes representation of diverse data, and allow the representation of the relationship of physical and logical data.
• Maintaining the accuracy of metadata through automated updates from the data source.

Oracle Data Service Integrator can be used to create, refine, and validate logical data structures through a process of importing data sources, creating physical and logical models, and designing queries for use by applications in an infrastructure that provides for easy maintenance, while enhancing security and performance.

Through standardized Service Data Objects (SDO) technology, web-based applications can automatically read and update relational data. Through simple Java programs Oracle Data Service Integrator update capabilities can be extended to support any logical data source.

Data Access Integration Architecture

In contemporary enterprise computing, data typically passes through multiple processing and storage layers. While enterprise data can easily be accessed, turning that data into useful information economically and efficiently, particularly updateable information, remains a difficult and high-maintenance task.

Oracle Data Service Integrator approaches the problem of creating integration architectures by building logical data services around physical data sources and then allowing business logic to be added as part of easily maintained, graphically designed XML query functions (also called XQueries).

Using standard protocols such as JDBC, Oracle Data Service Integrator automatically introspects data sources, creating physical data services and corresponding schemas that model a physical data source. Optional model diagrams capture relationships between relational data sources, such as primary and foreign keys.

Any Workshop for WebLogic application can include Oracle Data Service Integrator-based projects. And any application can access Oracle Data Service Integrator queries — including update functions — through a mediator API or an Oracle Data Service Integrator Control. In the case of relational data, updates can be performed automatically through Service Data Objects (SDO) (For details see Programming with Service Data Objects in the Oracle Data Service Integrator Client Application Developer's Guide.)

Oracle Data Service Integrator provides for the development of integrated queries within any Workshop for WebLogic application. Each application can contain multiple Oracle Data Service Integrator-based projects, as well as any other types of projects offered by Workshop for WebLogic.