Information on Demand
Do you just want to load your data correctly, or do you want to load the correct data? Do you just want data or do you want trusted information?
Why do you need to go to a database for data? Can't the information you need just be available when you need it?
Information on Demand
(IoD) is what IBM calls being able to serve information to applications without the apps needing to know a lot of messy details about where the data comes from or where the updates go. It provides a uniform view of "the truth," regardless of how the data may be scattered in fragmented, redundant, and contradictory pieces, in multiple data stores and differing formats. It makes large swaths of data look like a single consistent set of information, which makes it much more valuable and useful.
In SOA, we refer to IoD as Information as a Service (IaaS), which just means that you use SOA services to access information on demand. Obviously this makes the information access (read and write) easier to fit into an SOA so that SOA apps can use it. We also talk about this as the Information entry point, one of the SOA Entry Points.
Information about Information on Demand
Here are some places where you can learn more about information on demand:
Information on Demand Products
There are two main product suites for implementing information on demand:
