Data Integration

Making business and engineering decisions requires access to data from multiple sources. Many tools exist to mine, analyze, and present data. These tools almost always support accessing relational data stores through ODBC/OLE DB or JDBC. One widely used tool is Microsoft Access. It allows access to data stored in the Access MDB files and to external data sources accessible through ODBC. It then allows the user to report and query data as if it all exists in the Microsoft Access data store. All without having to move the actual data into Access or some other common data store.

Other approaches used by enterprises are to present an integrated view of data through middleware or a RDBMS such as SQL Server, Oracle, or DB2. SQL Server offers a distributed query processing feature that allows external OLE DB compliant data sources to be included in queries. This allows for data in SQL Server to be joined with data residing in one or more external data sources. Oracle and DB2 offer similar functionality.

Middleware from companies like IBM, Metamatrix and XAware allows creating a virtual layer on top of existing data stores. These products contain application specific adapters to access data from popular ERP and CRM applications and ODBC/JDBC adapters to access data from relational data stores.

All of the above scenarios require data sources to offer ODBC/JDBC and SQL capability. OpenAccess SDK empowers both ISV and the enterprise to quickly make their data sources accessible using SQL through ODBC, OLE DB, JDBC, or ADO.NET.