Patterns: Information Aggregation and Data Integration with DB2 Information Integrator

Chapter 3. Data Integration and Information Aggregation patterns 99

As mentioned earlier, the Information Aggregation business pattern is also

known as User-to-Data, and it exists in e-business solutions that allow users to

access and manipulate data that is aggregated from multiple sources. This

Business pattern captures the process of taking large volumes of data, text,

images, video, and so on, and using various user-controlled tools to extract

useful information from them.

User Information Access (UIA, previously known as

Information Access), is the

only Application pattern in Information Aggregation. It helps structure a system

design that provides mainly read-only access to aggregated information. It is

most often used in conjunction with one of the Data Integration patterns

discussed earlier, to provide users access to an aggregated repository created

by these data movement-related Application patterns. For many data-oriented

applications, UIA might also be called "query".

There are two variation patterns based on this Application pattern, as follows:

򐂰 UIA: Federation, which uses the Federation application pattern to extend the

reach of UIA to additional sources

򐂰 UIA: Write-back, which uses the Population or Two-way Synchronization

pattern to support managed update of data sources when the user writes to

his copy rather than simply reading from it

This section is organized as follows:

򐂰 Business and IT drivers

򐂰 User Information Access pattern

򐂰 User Information Access: Federation variation pattern

򐂰 User Information Access: Write-back variation pattern

򐂰 Guidelines for usage and scenario

3.6.1 Business and IT drivers

The primary business driver for choosing the User Information Access

application pattern and its variations is to provide efficient access to information

that has been derived or aggregated from one or multiple sources. This

mechanism can access both structured and unstructured data populated by any

of the Data Integration patterns. Internal and/or external users may use this

information for decision-making purposes.

For example, an Executive Information System (EIS) might generate a summary

report on a periodic basis that compares the sales performance of various

divisions of a company with the sales targets of those divisions. In this example,

the UIA application pattern is used for accessing information from structured

derived data. In addition, the application may provide drill-through capability