Data Virtualization: Users Grok What I Said 10 Years Ago

Ten years ago I put out the first EII (now data virtualization) report.  In it I said:

• ·         The value of DV is both in its being a database veneer across disparate databases, and in its discovery and storage of enterprise-wide global metadata
• ·         DV can be used for querying and updates
• ·         DV is of potential value to users and developers and administrators. Users see a far wider array of data, and new data sources are added more quickly/semi-automatically. Developers have “one database API to choke.” Administrators can use it to manage multiple databases/data stores at a time, for cost savings
• ·         DV can be great for mergers, metadata standardization, and as a complement to existing enterprise information architectures (obviously, including data warehousing)
• ·         DV is a “Swiss army knife” that can be used in any database-related IT project
• ·         DV is strategic, with effects not just on IT costs but also on corporate flexibility and speed to implement new products (I didn’t have the concept of business agility then)
• ·         DV can give you better access to information outside the business.

•  DV can serve as the “glue” of an enterprise information architecture.

I’m at DV Day 2012 (Composite Software) in NYC. Today, for the first time, I have heard not just vendors talking about implementing these things, but users actually doing them – global metadata, user self-service access to the full range of corporate data, development using SQL access, use for updating in operational databases, use for administration of at least the metadata management of multiple databases as well as archiving administrative tasks, use in mergers, use in “data standardization”, use as an equal partner with data warehousing, use in just about every database-related IT project, selling by as strategic to the business with citations of impacts on the bottom line through strategic products as well as “business agility”, use to access extra-enterprise Big Data across multiple clouds, and use as the framework of an enterprise information architecture.

I just wanted to say, on a personal note, that this is what makes being an analyst worthwhile.  Not that I was right 10 years ago. That, for once, by the efforts of everyone pulling together to make the point and elaborate the details, we have managed to get the world to implement a wonderful idea. I firmly believed that, at least in some small way, the world would be better off if we implemented DV. Now, it’s clear that that’s true, and that DV is unstoppable.

And so, I just wanted to take a moment to celebrate.