Data Services

As IT organizations adopt service-oriented architectures to realize the benefits of service reuse and system agility, enterprise architects are looking to build reusable data services that can be consumed by a host of different applications in a loosely-coupled environment. The Informatica platform is designed to fit into an IT organization’s service-oriented architecture to deliver data services to consuming applications over standards-based protocols.

Components and Benefits

Standards-based Protocols. Client applications that need to access data integration capabilities can get to data services on the Informatica platform through a variety of standards-based protocols. The platform provides support for Web services through its Web services hub, which exposes batch and real-time data services defined using the Web Services Definition Language (WSDL) and delivered over the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The platform also provides support for JMS and other messaging systems, such as IBM MQ Series and TIBCO Rendezvous, through its ability to publish and subscribe to these message queuing systems. Finally, the platform also supports clients accessing data services over programmatic APIs such as JDBC and ODBC. This gives IT organizations tremendous flexibility and allows them to maximize the use of their existing developer skills and infrastructure.

Right-time Delivery. The Informatica platform supports real-time, batch, and change-only delivery of data. Applications involving operational systems require data access in real-time, often to synchronize disparate IT systems to ensure a consistent “single version of the truth.” The platform provides real-time access to data sources and enables consuming applications to get to the data through data services in real-time. Similarly, applications requiring bulk movement of large volumes of data or synchronization with external schedulers can leverage the batch capabilities of the Informatica platform. Finally, for data sources that change infrequently, or where only certain data elements change at a time, the Informatica platform can detect and deliver only the data that has changed, thus optimizing performance and throughput. IT organizations can reap significant benefits by developing transformations and business logic once and reusing it in multiple situations irrespective of whether real-time, batch, or change-only delivery modes are employed.

Product Literature

PowerCenter Brochure
SOA White Paper