Data access is a large part of most Internet applications. Oracle Commerce Platform Data Anywhere Architecture provides a unified view of content and data across a business for organizations and their customers. The core of the Data Anywhere Architecture is the Repository API. Through the Repository API, you can employ a single approach to accessing disparate data types, including SQL databases, LDAP directories, content management systems, and file systems.
With Data Anywhere, the application logic created by developers uses the same approach to interact with data regardless of the source of that data. One of the most powerful aspects of this architecture is that the source of the data is hidden behind the Oracle Commerce Platform Repository abstraction. It is easy to change from a relational data source to an LDAP directory as none of the application logic needs to change. After data is retrieved from a data source, it is transformed into an object-oriented representation. Manipulation of the data can be done using simple getPropertyValue and setPropertyValue methods. The Repository API ties in closely with The Oracle Commerce Platform’s targeting APIs, so you can retrieve items from the repository based on a variety of targeting rules, as well as retrieving specific identified items.
The figure below provides a high-level overview of the Data Anywhere Architecture.
Data Anywhere Architecture offers several advantages over the standard data access methods such as Java Data Objects (JDO), Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), and Java Database Connectivity (JDBC). Among the differences:
Data source independence
Data Anywhere Architecture provides access to relational database management systems, LDAP directories, and file systems using the same interfaces. This insulates application developers from schema changes and also storage mechanism. Data can even move from a relational database to an LDAP directory without requiring recoding. Java Data Objects support data source independence, but it is up to vendors to provide an LDAP implementation.
Fewer lines of Java code
Less code leads to faster time-to-market and reduced maintenance cost. Persistent data types created with Data Anywhere are described in an XML file, with no Java code required.
Unified view of all customer interactions
A unified view of customer data (gathered by web applications, call center applications, and ERP systems) can be provided without copying data into a central data source. This unified view of customer data leads to a coherent and consistent customer experience.
Maximum performance
Intelligent caching of data objects ensures excellent performance and timely, accurate results. The JDO and EJB standards rely on a vendor implementation of caching that might not be available.
Simplified transactional control
The key to overall system performance is minimizing the impact of transactions while maintaining the integrity of your data. In addition to full Java Transaction API (JTA) support, Data Anywhere lets both page developers and software engineers control the scope of transactions with the same transactional modes—required, supports, never—used by EJB deployment engineers.
Fine-grained access control
You can control who has access to which data at the data type, data object, even down to the individual property with Access Control Lists (ACLs).
Integration with Other Oracle Commerce Platform Products
Oracle Commerce Platform personalization, scenarios, commerce, portal, and content administration applications all make use of repositories for data access. A development team is free to use EJBs as well, but the easiest way to leverage investment in Oracle Commerce Platform technology is to follow the example set by the solution sets. The Oracle Commerce Platform solution sets satisfy all their data access needs with repositories.
