In the enterprise IT world, data is stored in a vast array of information repositories, such as corporate databases, enterprise relationship planning systems, customer resource management systems, and many others. Finding data dispersed across these many repositories can be time-consuming and frustrating for end users. As companies deploy enterprise-wide business processes and work to achieve compliance with government and industry regulations, they must bridge the various data islands and provide transparent, secure access to data wherever it is stored.
Over the past couple of decades, a dedicated data integration industry has formed to address this challenge. These companies make it easier to access, search, synchronize, move and manage data from enterprise repositories, typically using tools and services that are installed on corporate servers and move data on corporate networks. Enterprise solutions typically leverage traditional data portability standards such as SQL, ACORD, ARTS, FIX/FPL, OFX and many others.
However, in recent years a new type of application has emerged, which you may know as Web 2.0. These applications use the Web as their essential platform and rely on a variety of Internet-based services - usually from independent service providers - for identity management, single sign-on, data management, content delivery, event management, reliable messaging and more. Accordingly, an enterprise approach simply won’t work, yet Web 2.0 users still need to access data without administrative hassles. Fortunately, new Web data portability standards are emerging to help address these needs.
Web 2.0: New world, New Rules
Today, a broad variety of Internet-based applications such as Flickr and Facebook are now available. They allow users to maintain profiles, participate in communities, create and post content, and perform a wide variety of other tasks. Some applications even mashup business logic and services from different sources. Tim O’Reilly, a well-known Silicon Valley investor and blogger, has defined this new phenomenon as follows:
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")
He also described the common attributes of Web 2.0 applications:
- Don’t treat software as an artifact, but as a process of engagement with your users.
- Open your data and services for reuse by others, and reuse the data and services of others whenever possible.
- Don't think of applications that reside on either client or server, but build applications that reside in the space between devices.
- Remember that in a network environment, open APIs and standard protocols win, but this doesn't mean that the idea of competitive advantage goes away.
- Chief among the future sources of competitive advantage will be data, whether through increasing returns from user-generated data, through owning a name space or through proprietary file formats.
Data plays a central role in Web 2.0 applications. Data defines the business model and is the ultimate commodity in the new Internet-based economy. But as the number of sites and data multiplies, the challenges of accessing and managing this data also grow. To truly realize the Web 2.0 vision, Internet-based applications must be able to securely access, share, synchronize and manage data stored in disparate repositories - the same problem enterprise computing has already addressed, but on a whole new platform. Accordingly, we need a new set of solutions.
A basic level of standardization is often the first step and is an important requirement for more powerful data integration services to emerge. In other words, data portability is the precursor to data integration. Today, new organizations and committees aimed at standardizing representation of data on the Internet are already beginning to make data portability a reality.
New Standards Emerge
Dataportability.org is one of the more interesting groups driving data portability today. Originally, this organization focused on putting users in control of their own data, as it accumulated across various Internet-based services. However, the organization now has a broader goal, and champions overall standards for Web data portability. Let’s take a quick look at some of them.
OpenID. OpenID aims to be a free and simple way to use a single digital identity across the Web, and has been adopted by Yahoo, AOL, Google, Microsoft, MySpace, Orange, France Telecom and many other providers. More than half a billion people now have an OpenID identifier, which should further encourage active adoption of this standard.
OpenID does have some issues, including usability: an OpenID identifier is a URL string that can be difficult to remember. It also has many powerful proprietary competitors, such as Facebook Connect. Nonetheless, given its broad audience, OpenID could potentially become the dominant way to represent user identities on the Internet.
