Eliminate Data Silos: Query Many Systems As One: Data Virtualization in IBM Cloud Pak For Data
Eliminate Data Silos: Query Many Systems As One: Data Virtualization in IBM Cloud Pak For Data
Collaborative computing
Background
By using the processing power of every data source and
Data is everywhere and the best businesses in the world today
accessing the data that each data source has physically stored,
are data-driven. Businesses are collecting data from more and
latency from moving and copying data is avoided. In addition,
increasingly diverse sources to analyze and run their operations,
all repository data is accessible in real time, and governance
with those sources perhaps numbering in the thousands or
and erroneous data issues are virtually eliminated. There’s no
millions. The complexity, cost, time and risk of error in collecting,
need for extract, transform and load (ETL) and duplicate data
governing, storing, processing and analyzing that data centrally
storage, accelerating processing times. This process brings
is increasing exponentially. In parallel, the databases and
real-time insights to decision-making applications or analysts
repositories that are the sources of all of this data are more
more quickly and dependably than existing methods. It also
powerful, with abundant processing and data storage capability remains highly complementary with existing methods and can
of their own available and at hand. easily coexist when it remains necessary to copy and move
some data for historical, archival or regulatory purposes.
Data virtualization overview
Data virtualization in IBM® Cloud™ Pak for Data (formerly IBM Schema folding
Cloud Private for Data), is a unique new technology that A common scenario in distributed data systems is that many
connects all these data sources into a single self-balancing databases store data in a common schema. For example,
collection of data sources or databases, referred to as a you may have multiple databases storing sales data or
constellation. See Figure 1. No longer are analytics queries transactional data, each for a set of tenants or a region.
performed on data copied and stored in a centralized location. IBM Data Virtualization can automatically detect common
The analytics application submits a query that’s processed on schemas across systems and allow them to appear as a single
the server where the data source exists. Results of the query schema in data virtualization — a process known as schema
are consolidated within the constellation and returned to the folding. For example, a SALES table that exists in each of
original application. No data is copied and it exists only at the 20 databases can now appear as a single SALES table and be
source. queried through Structured Query Language (SQL) as one
virtual table.
Find Find
Find
Relational Spreadsheets
CITY VARCHAR FLOW_RATE DOUBLE
VOLUME DOUBLE
ACCT_NO VARCHAR
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Today, a data scientist must create a data lake, copy data – Profitability, growth and risk reduction
from the sources of interest and integrate that data before – Agility and productivity boosts
being able to test out hypotheses with analytics. IBM Data – Optimization of existing IT investments
Virtualization eliminates the need for the data lake, allowing
data scientists to federate the data they require to test It improves the use of existing server and storage investments
hypotheses by connecting tools like IBM Watson® Studio while reducing unnecessary data replication and the associated
directly to the data sources. costs of duplication and infrastructure management. With
simplified admini tration and a set of SQL application pro-
Deliver agility to key analytical projects gramming interfaces (APIs), it enables your business to derive
The simplicity offered by IBM Data Virtualization allows users benefits from real-time analytics.
to acquire actionable, unified data when they want, in the way
For more information, try out Cloud Pak for Data at no cost, or
they want, at the speed matching their analytical needs. This
schedule a consultation. We also invite you to dive deeper
technology leads to faster integration speed and performance,
into our product details by visiting us on the web.
and improved decision-making that helps you adapt to
changing business demands.
IBM Data Virtualization in Cloud Pak for Data supports a range
of key initiatives, including:
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