Book Review: Viral Data in SOA

“Virus: A microorganism smaller than a bacteria, which cannot grow or reproduce apart from a living cell. A virus invades living cells and uses their chemical machinery to keep itself alive and to replicate itself. It may reproduce with fidelity or with errors (mutations)-this ability to mutate is responsible for the ability of some viruses to change slightly in each infected person, making treatment more difficult.” Medicine.net

In the early stages of the flu season, it is only appropriate we take a quick look at viral infections.

With discussions about service oriented architecture, concerns about data quality, and data management will become highlighted to any organization. As bad data infects one portion it will easily flow through to other modules, databases, process flows, reports and decision points of your company. One must be vigilante in monitoring data, and managing it.

What did I like about this book, everything. What didn’t I like about I, not much.

“Service –Oriented architectures are intended to encourage solution builders to create offerings that can readily transcend point-in-time solutions.”

The author, Neal A. Fishman, talks about data governance and the critical role communication plays. He identifies that data governance can also be handled in a proactive and reactive manner. He identifies what needs to be done to enforce data governance in a SOA environment, and how the control points can govern data quality. Those points being:

-- 1. Ensure: Controls for operating
-- 2. Assure : Controls for performing
-- 3. Insure: Controls for sustaining
-- 4. Reassure: Controls for continuity

He describes data quality and data governance in great detail within the SOA environment and the author states:

“The effectiveness of data governance depends on how the governance body reacts and adapts to the cultural environment.”

With that the author describes the dialing system to tweak operations. ED-SODA provides the dimensions needed to adjust the data governance process. It can be used for virtually any culture if not all.

And if you are having issues with building a data governance model, step into the reference model, for this is where you will get your basics for developing controls in data governance.

Even though the book is about data in a SOA environment, this is a book for every data analyst particularly the sections on data quality, data governance, and a myriad of thought provoking points throughout the book. and how bad data can become viral. These points and examples of what others have done will provide insight into your own issues and processes.