I always thought of information as a service being enabled by an abstraction layer that sits on top of the underlying data sources, providing a veneer that hides the details of the underlying systems and gives developers or users a common and consistent view, typically delivered in the form of a business object, rather than as a set of fields and tables. Something more akin to what Forrester talks about as an Information Fabric. Eric Roch has a great post on the value of such data virtualization, with some good examples.
But on my recent trip to Asia, someone opened my eyes to another potential view. They talked about how if companies could use a database to store their information as business objects in the first place, then that database could essentially enable access to information as a service, without even requiring an abstraction layer. And of course, they were referring to the native XML capabilities of the new release of DB2, version 9 (code named DB2 Viper).
Now, I realize that most organizations have a lot of information stored in various different systems across their enterprise, and will still need some abstraction layer to federate across these systems and provide a consistent view. However, I thought this comment was very interesting and could provide another significant value proposition for DB2 as the first hybrid data server with native support for both xml and relational data. If you can begin storing new information as native XML, to more closely represent actual business objects, but still support traditional SQL based storage and access, then your information will be that much easier to make available as a service. The native XML support also provides much greater flexibility to support changes to how your business objects are defined - and let's face it, you are always changing the way you define a customer, a supplier, an order, a product, etc. This could be quite compelling for organizations looking to streamline their IT efforts and get closer to true Information on Demand capabilities.
Thank you Dennis Liu (actually Jing Wei Liu) out in Beijing for your great insights. While I don't believe a database alone can enable information as a service, I do now see how DB2 9's native XML capabilities can help organizations get there more quickly, and with less effort and greater flexibility.
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