Blog: Dan E. Linstedt

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Were does EII need to go?

In this entry I will explore some futuristic capabilities (a wish list) of features that I would like to see EII work towards. The real questions are beginning to surface about EII and ETL / ETLT and EAI, there are other questions about web-services, security, standardization, and the best practices needed for implementation of SOA around the enterprise. Let's take a look at the feature set that may be needed via an EII tool in the near future.

What are some of the business problems that EII solves compared to ETL and EAI?
* Access to "now data", current view of transactions across multiple disparate source systems
* Management of Metadata (currently mostly meta-models) for "conforming" of the data model across the enterprise. In this manner, it may actually assist in the development of the data warehouse of the future.
* Dynamic integration of unstructured and semi-structured data
* Real-Time / Right-Time reporting

Technical Problems that EII solves
* Access to XML, XQuery, XPATH data and documents.
* Access to Web Services
* Access to semi-structured and unstructured data sets
* Control over publication of Web-Services
* Definition of consistent enterprise metadata
* GUI Development Interface for web-services

What we need is a single tool, a single interface to handle a much more broad set of requirements. EII has such a narrow scope right now (because most EII tools are just now coming into the second generation), that additional functionality is necessary to really take a chunk of the market space. For instance, a huge potential exists for a very strong single GUI in an EII tool to manage, maintain, and help define UDDI registries (in other words manage the web-services through metadata). Today, there appear to be partnerships between EII vendors and "Registry" vendors. This is good, but won't remain a differentiator for long.

Wish list of features
* Virtual Tables
* Registry (UDDI) management and integration
* Automated Query Tuning
* Two-Phase commit across sources that allow write-back
* Management of Security Policies
* Business Metadata and Ontology Support
* Additional bi-directional metadata interface, particularly to work with MetaIntegration

The next generation of EII tool will have to extend it's metadata reach, into business metadata, across process metadata, and down into Web Services Management and maintenance. It will have to add Version Control of Registries, web-services as a whole, security policies, and so on. Why? The EII space will need to continue to take chunks of "very hard domain problems" and show enterprise information integration with their solution. They will need to focus LESS on transformation (although that will remain a key function), and focus MORE on additional TYPES of information integration.

Their ability to truly integrate the enterprise and ALL of it's data (not necessarily in volume, but remaining true to the notions of currency) will have a huge impact IF this information can also be managed. Reaching into new domains of information integration will help EII grow into a major player in the implementation space.

SOA is growing, best practices are being developed, web-services and EII are major players in the success of SOA. Particularly when EII can provide the management of the Web-Services and it's metadata. It's a domain that is a natural fit for EII, the EII vendor of the future will "purchase" a registry solution as their own, and will begin to differentiate beyond other vendors in this area and in what they can do with the metadata. One of the largest keys to success will be: how does the EII tool tackle the problem of "bringing that management to the end-user?"

In other words, can the tool provide enough of an end-user or business user interface to entice metadata management to take place as a natural function of business? The GUI interface and codeless solutions will become more and more important, tying the metadata to a master integrated meta-model (single view of the enterprise) will also become paramount to success. Finally, the EII tool that can communicate bi-directionally with a metadata solution will have tremendous success, as business users see added leverage for utilizing a single GUI interface to assist with true EII.

Do you agree / disagree? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Thanks,
Dan L

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