Data services are web services used to handle the programming logic for data virtualization in a cloud-hosted data storage infrastructure.
What do I need to know about data services?
Data services are useful when organizations use a heterogeneous storage infrastructure, for example, when using Data as a Service (DaaS). In these situations data can be stored in many places and consumers of the data need ways to find and analyze the information they need without concern for the specific location of that data.
How do data services work?
When combined with data virtualization, data services provide an abstraction layer from the details of stored data. Data virtualization provides the storage platform while data services do the programmatic work of retrieving data from the platform. Data services automate the work of locating heterogeneously-stored data and provide developers and data analysts with simple programmatic tools to find and extract the data they need with little effort. In an application, data services act as a middleware, independently finding and delivering data the application requests. Data services are essentially web services for data.
What are the benefits of data services?
Data services give IT more flexibility in how and where it stores data. By making it easy to find and deliver data from anywhere, IT can choose storage that is cost-effective and convenient to maintain. For example, data services make it feasible for organizations to store data in the cloud or to use a hybrid cloud for data storage. Once created, data services are reusable, making it possible for the organization to save a great deal of time on future development. Also, since developers have fewer data-related programming tasks to complete, new IT initiatives can be deployed rapidly, making the organization more agile.
