What is Information Fabric? Why is it relevant? The Challenges Characteristics Vendor Landscape

1. Information Fabric
Intro to
Rajesuwer P Singaravelu
Jan 2010
1

2. Data Fabric
Data Grid
Dynamic Mesh Architecture
Although the more simple form of information fabric is called a data fabric or
data grid, these terms are often used synonymously.
The term fabric comes from a 2-dimensional illustration of interconnects, as in a switched fabric. The purpose of
a fabric architecture is that all points within a fabric have a direct interconnect with all other points.
Information Fabric - Aliases
2

3. What is Information Fabric
Distributed, data platform that sits between application infrastructures
(J2EE/.NET Framework) and back-end data sources
A virtualized data layer that integrates heterogeneous data and content
repositories in real time.
“Information Fabric” is coined by Forrester.
3

4. Why Is It Relevant?
4

5. Data Challenges
Disparate data sources managed by different applications
Data integration, security, performance, availability, and quality
Business wants fast, real-time, and reliable information
IT wants to lower costs, minimize complexity, and improve operational
efficiency
5

6. Pain Points of Traditional DBMS Systems
High latency and lack of scalability under concurrent loads
Lack of effective state management in distributed environments
Expensive and inefficient data replication
Lack of flexibility in supporting event driven architectures as well as request/
reply.
6

7. Characteristics of Information Fabric
Distributed, co-located, reliable data distribution
High availability, scalability and performance
In-memory data caching, multiple APIs for data access, and real-time data
analysis
Query, Continuous Query features
Read-through (from databases) and Write-Behind (asynchronous write to DB)
7

8. Vendor Landscape
GemFire Enterprise Data Fabric
http://www.gemstone.com/products/gemfire/edf.php
Oracle Coherence Data Grid (formerly the Tangosol)
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/coherence/index.html
IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale (formerly extended deployment data grid)
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/webservers/appserv/extremescale/
GigaSpaces Enterprise Data Fabric
http://www.gigaspaces.com/
Cacheonix Data Fabric
http://www.cacheonix.com/
Hazelcast Data Fabric
http://www.hazelcast.com/
Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/dataservices/index.html
8