Extreme data integration scalability. In Web services more than anywhere else, data volumes are a threat to data integration. As data volumes grow, data integration for Web services is exposed to performance and scalability challenges that can derail the best architected SOA. As the number of "moving parts" increases (both in terms of number of components and the amount of data brought in and exchanged by the components), the architecture may begin to exhibit signs of stress that were previously undetected. This is the second-greatest challenge to SOA from a data management perspective.
Evolving economics of data integration. Data integration can be an expensive proposition in itself. Mr. Russom notes that one of the curious epiphanies striking users as they study the economics of data integration is that the cost of hand-coding is misleadingly low in the first phase of a project, but goes through the roof in maintenance phases, and this realization has accelerated the trend away from hand-coding and toward solutions developed atop a vendor's platform. This is true enough, yet, on the other hand, vendor-provided ETL tools and EII and Data Quality solutions don't come cheap either - nor do consulting services to deploy these in the enterprise and leverage them in order to gain a meaningful return on investment (ROI). In the context of Web services, architects must pay careful attention to their data integration needs, and select only those tools and technologies that deliver the need - which, in turn, implies that the need for data integration must be assessed first, followed by careful planning and design.
Data Quality
Next in importance to data integration (or perhaps more important than it) is the need for data quality. Quite simply, data quality will make or break the service-oriented architecture. Data quality is a fairly wide discipline, but there are two aspects to data quality that are most pertinent to SOA: structural data integrity and data consistency. Structural data integrity comes into force at the data modeling level, and ensures that all database objects and components are structurally sound; data consistency comes into play when the transactions get going. Examples of structural data integrity and data consistency are:
Do all tables have primary keys? (I have seen this one violated more often than you might imagine.)
Do common attributes share a common definition? (E.g., is the Customer ID defined identically in various places?)
How will referential integrity be maintained across component databases?
How is reference (or lookup) data managed across databases?
Is there a consistent approach to maintaining historical data?
As you might imagine, unresolved issues of these kinds can throw a sizable spanner in the SOA machinery.
Data Security
Any discussion on data today would be incomplete without examining the security aspect of information. It would be imprudent to assume that the authentication and authorization mechanisms in the SOA are fully sufficient to ensure data security, although they are clearly an important component of data security. In another insightful paper from Giga Research, Noel Yuhanna recommends a comprehensive DBMS (database management system) security architecture, comprising the following items. Once again, I have rearranged the order for the present purpose, although this time the original descriptions are retained.
Application-level security. When application or Web servers are deployed, end users should not have direct access to the DBMS but only through the applications. Remember to apply standard practices, such as (1) allowing users one login to an application, (2) discouraging shared logins, (3) performing regular audit checks to track suspicious activities, and (4) creating a password aging policy.
Data protection. Enterprises that store sensitive data including credit card information, social security number, and other personnel-related information should encrypt the underlying data to enable an additional security layer. However, only encrypt a few columns to minimize system overhead and performance implications.
DBMS hardening. Most enterprises typically use the default database network port address on their database server, which often leaves the database vulnerable. Avoid using such default port numbers by assigning a unique network port address for each database application. When applicable, apply DBMS and server-level security patches to minimize known vulnerabilities; however, always perform end-to-end testing and integrated testing of the application to ensure that the security patches do not impact any application's functionality.
Secure administration. Protect backup tapes and ensure that unauthorized personnel do not have access. Restrict physical access to the database server at all times. For test databases, use old archived data or test data instead of production data to minimize developers' and testers' unprivileged data access.
About Rajan Chandras Rajan Chandras is a principal consultant with the New York offices of CSC Consulting (www.csc.com),. The article is written in his personal capacity and not on behalf of or representing CSC.
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A few years ago, a British newspaper speculated on what might be the Web equivalent of the Seven Wonders of the World, and received suggestions that were hardly surprising: Google search, the Amazon.com e-tail portal, the eBay auction mechanism, etc. But that was back in 1991, before F...
A round-up of the many themes and topics of interest to infrastructure architects, developers and IT managers featuring at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo being held November 19-21, 2008 at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The conference is expecting a record turnout of senio...
SYS-CON Events announced today that the leading global SOA, Virtualization, Cloud Computing and Open Source technology provider FreedomOSS named "Gold Sponsor" of SYS-CON's SOA World Conference & Expo which will take place November 19-21, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Sil...
