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Re: [ontolog-forum] Data, Silos, Interoperability, and Agility

To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: Kingsley Idehen <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 17:13:44 -0400
Message-id: <523E0C08.8070605@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On 9/21/13 2:29 PM, David Eddy wrote:
Kingsley -

On Sep 21, 2013, at 1:43 PM, Kingsley Idehen wrote:

I thought I was explicit in stating that a major challenge of legacy systems is NOT the data, but the systems themselves... COBOL, JCL, CICS, DB2, IMS, DELTA, EasyTrieve, etc.
There are tools in the form of data access drivers that provide access to data associated with all the above. These drivers enable access via SQL i.e., the middleware maps the underlying data to the RDBMS model.

Please read what I'm trying to say.

So far I say "system" & you say "data"... I'm NOT talking about the data a system processes.


One of the layers of complexity that must be addressed in legacy portfolios is NOT the data stored in flat files or any sort of DBMS, it is the systems themselves.  The software that contains the business logic that processes the data.

Yes, I am very aware of that. I separate Apps (what orchestrates state transistions) and Data (what has state). As per the mail I just sent, a view into the Data doesn't affect the Apps and Services that *systematically* orchestrate state transitions.

There is a tremendous amount of "business logic" buried in the software, as opposed to the data the software processes.

Yes, and in some cases those processes have SOA (via SOAP) and in some cases REST-ful interactions wrapped around them. Be it SOAP or REST-ful interactions, you end up with structured data representation constrained by a schema, vocabulary, or full blown ontology.

The big Semantic Web narrative mistake (in the early days) was the conflation of semantics and formats i.e., if you expressed your model using XML that wasn't RDF/XML many assumed it means no semantics. Thus, the semantics expressed in many XML Schemas associated with SOAP re., SOA were discarded in a utterly useless turf war.

 
 There is also a tremendous amount of obsolete junk buried in the systems.  Figuring out which is which non trivial.

Non trivial but doable, progressively.



Is there something that you do not grok about the different between "system" & "data?" 

I am sure (or at least hope) you know me better than that :-)

They are two different things.  The machine tools (the systems) processes the raw materials (data) into finished goods (data).

This entire exercise is absolutely NOT nicely confined to RDBMS engines.

I didn't say it was. I am saying that DBMS engines (including RDBMS variants) are part of the deal re. the critical decoupling of applications (systems) and data.

 I think I've already said that I met one fellow who matter-of-factly commented that his organization has some 28 DBMS engines in use.  I could only count to 17.

Fine, but how does that change anything re., the fundamental issue of structured representation of data (be it the data in a DBMS, the data in messages re. state transitions orchestrated by apps and services) ?

Kingsley
 
____________________________
David Eddy
Babson Park, MA

deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



 
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-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	      
Founder & CEO 
OpenLink Software     
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