The Importance of Accessing Data – Including Cloud-Based Data Sources – with Standards-Based APIs

The Importance of Accessing Data – Including Cloud-Based Data Sources – with Standards-Based APIs

Posted on April 07, 2009 0 Comments

In this podcast, Rob Steward explains what the future holds for database connectivity. The podcast runs for 3:51.

To listen to the podcast, please click on the following link: http://dataaccesshandbook.com/media/Rob5.mp3

Podcast text: What do you see in the future in database connectivity?

Rob Steward: Well I think the future is still standards based. We talk specifically in the book about ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET. These are standard data access APIs, which in fact most of the world uses to access their data. Now you may use something like a Hibernate or in Hibernate on top of JDBC or ADO.NET, but in a way those are really standard ways to access your data as well. And they’re still sitting on top of those JDBC drivers or those ADO.NET data providers. So I think that the future is still standards based because of all the benefits of using a standard: you run one API instead of learning one API for every database you want to access. But I also think there are some influences on the industry now that will change some of those standard ways to access data.

The biggest thing I see coming is cloud computing. In the cloud it’s still data. Let’s say you use SalesForce.com as your CRM, you still need to take that data and integrate it with your applications and with your data that lives within your firewall. So, I think one of the big influences on the future of connectivity is, how do we get to that access in the standard way to those cloud sources? If you build an application on the Google App Engine, or you build an application on Force.com, or you’re using some FaaS type application like the Salesforce CRM, how do we get to that data and integrate it with everything else in your enterprise? So I think that what we’ll see is the connectivity start to branch out and begin to access those types of forces in those standard ways so that you can plug it into all those applications that you know and love today. You may have a business intelligence application that can handle any OBDC connection, well you still you need that ODBC connectivity to those cloud sources, or a JDBC application, or your .NET applications. How do we get that data from those sources instead of the traditional relational sources into your application, into your enterprise? I think that’s one of the big things.

Now cloud computing and accessing data across the internet or cloud type interfaces has its own unique challenges that will need to be addressed by the connectivity vendors. Personally I’ve been spending a lot of time in that space lately, looking at what the unique challenges are. When you access something across the internet, there are some interesting performance implications when you think about the latency that’s going to be there that doesn’t really exist when you’re inside your firewall. How do you reduce those of number of round trips to get that data? And how do you reduce the number of web service calls that you make to get that data out of the cloud? I think that’s going to have a big influence on the direction of connectivity for the future. Those problems that have to be solved to make these types of architecture, i.e. using cloud source, perform well with what people are used to with absolute control inside your firewall. So that’s what I think is probably the biggest thing that I see that’s going to influence connectivity moving forward. < >< ><-->

Rob Steward

View all posts from Rob Steward on the Progress blog. Connect with us about all things application development and deployment, data integration and digital business.

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