OASIS Advances Service Data Objects Architecture for Uniform SOA Data Handling

Business Wire, Nov 15, 2007

Adobe, BEA Systems, IBM, Progress Software, SAP, and Xcalia Collaborate on Approach to Simplify Data Programming in SOA Environments

BOSTON -- OASIS, the international open standards consortium, has formed a new technical committee to advance the Service Data Objects (SDO) specification, which is designed to simplify the way in which Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications handle data. Using SDO, application programmers can uniformly access and manipulate data from heterogeneous data sources, including relational databases, XML data sources, Web services, and enterprise information systems.

"Most of the data programming technologies in use today are specific to a single type of data source, but in real-world applications, data frequently comes from a variety of places. As a result, application developers are burdened by the need to learn a plethora of programming models and data access APIs," noted Shawn Moe of IBM, convenor of the OASIS SDO Technical Committee. "By offering a common facility for representing collections of data--regardless of data source type--SDO gives application developers a more simple, unified programming model and enables tools to work across heterogeneous data sources consistently."

"Each type of data source (databases, documents, web services, and enterprise application systems) exposes a unique set of APIs, protocols, and formats, increasing the complexity of an application," explained Anne Thomas Manes, Vice President and Research Director for Burton Group. "A unified data programming model allows developers to focus on business logic rather than technical details."

The OASIS SDO Technical Committee will be affiliated with the OASIS Open Composite Services Architecture (Open CSA) Member Section, where the Service Component Architecture (SCA) family of specifications is also being developed. Together, SCA and SDO define a language-neutral programming model that lets developers of enterprise software fully exploit the benefits of SOA.

"SDO provides a neutral access path to enterprise data, which is the core of the customer solution," said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "Many of our members are building exciting tools, data access services and frameworks which will further integrate SDO with existing and future data access technologies."

Participation in the OASIS SDO TC remains open to all companies, non-profit groups, government agencies, academic institutions, and individuals. Archives of the work will be accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS will offer a mechanism for public comment. SDO will be offered for implementation on a Royalty-Free basis.

Presentations on SDO, SCA, and other SOA-related standards will be the focus of the upcoming OASIS event, 'Open Standards 2008: Composability within SOA', which will be held 28 April - 1 May in Santa Clara, California. The deadline for program submissions is 17 December.

Support for SDO

BEA Systems

"SDO is very important to BEA. It is a standard that can help enable a service-oriented approach to data integration, which represents a critical aspect of any comprehensive SOA platform deployment," said Ed Cobb, Vice President of Emerging Technology and Standards at BEA Systems.

IBM

"IBM is pleased to see the widespread industry support for the formation of the SDO Technical Committee. This is consistent with the goal of providing customers with a truly open, standards based model for SOA solutions. SDO lets applications access a variety of data sources in a common way, allowing programmers to focus on business processes rather than different data formats. Use of SDO and SCA will allow customers to develop dynamic, adaptable SOA solutions more quickly," said Karla Norsworthy, IBM Vice President of Software Standards.

Progress Software

"As a longtime OASIS member organization, Progress Software is proud to extend its support and technical expertise to the OASIS SDO Technical Committee as inaugural members. As an organization, we are committed to helping the software development community simplify data programming through the creation and widespread use of industry standards. We look forward to playing a key role in helping to define and advance the SDO architecture specifications and API," said John Goodson, vice president of product operations for the DataDirect Technologies division of Progress Software.

SAP

"Simplification of data programming to be independent of programming languages and data sources is a fundamental requirement as companies make the shift to an enterprise services oriented architecture. SDO is making great strides in the efforts to make this reality, and as a founding member company in the development of the SDO specifications, SAP is pleased to see the transition of this effort to OASIS for further refinement and broader adoption of this technology," said Sanjay Patil, Standards Architect, SAP AG.

Additional information:

OASIS SDO Technical Committee

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/sdo

OASIS Open CSA Member Section