The Rise of Logical Data Management

Chapter 6. Scalability and Performance

Your business needs data from multiple sources inside and outside the organization to enable effective decision making. It needs to access data in multiple formats and through multiple security mechanisms. Logical data management serves as a conduit that connects these separate sources together under a single layer, creating an accessible, easy-to-navigate, and easy-to-understand data marketplace for anyone within your organization to utilize. But what happens when data grows or changes? How can data virtualization help your company adapt and mature its data environment without sacrificing the speed and depth of the data itself?

It may seem like data virtualization is another step between the source data and the user; however, when correctly configured, the difference in speed is minimal, and data virtualization can even speed up slow data sources by using caching and query acceleration techniques. There are many opportunities to optimize performance, and this chapter digs deeper into them. We will explore the multiple data virtualization approaches and how each works to optimize performance. We’ll also look at other tools and techniques that work collaboratively or as part of the data virtualization software to further improve data speeds.

Approaches to Data Virtualization

A data virtualization tool needs to connect to multiple sources at once to provide a holistic view of your company’s data. The data needs to be translated into business ...