Solving the Data Inter-operability Problem Using a Universal Data Access Broker

Stored data has been fundamental to human enterprise ever since the invention of clay tablets, or perhaps even as early as primitive cave paintings. All stored data requires the definition of persistent representations for that data, and corresponding interfaces to access and use that data. Once invented, each representation of persistent data must inevitably inter-operate with humans or mechanisms that use other persistent representations. None of this is new to the human experience, yet the Biblical Tower of Babel is as nothing compared to the bewildering data interoperability problem brought forth by the computer in just fifty years. It’s perhaps hard to imagine Alexander halting his armies whilst critical data was translated by scribes from obsolete forms. But no great leap at all to imagine a modern day corporate Alexander stopped in his tracks because his CIO simply cannot get one enterprise system to inter-operate in the necessary manner with data produced by another enterprise system. Or perhaps because his CIO cannot achieve the required data inter-operability at the transaction speeds required by some new business campaign.