Hans Bossenbroek
InformationGrid
Hans Bossenbroek explains how a dataplatform like InformationGrid is used to aggregate and manage data. Because of the rising importance of data, organizations are searching for a way to implement dataplatforms to best utilize data in their business. Hans also shares insights on the emergence of dataplatforms and the features found in InformationGrid.
The InformationGrid data platform
An important part of conversations I have with organizations circles around questions like “How to benefit from data” and “What does it take to use data to improve competitive advantage”. Both questions have become more relevant with the insight that data is considered to be the most valuable IT asset of organizations. However, this insight doesn’t exactly help organizations; on the contrary, it forces organizations into unknown territories because it challenges some of the best practices in the industry.
Over the back of examples like Netflix, Google, and OpenAI their best practices have resulted in an altered view on modelling data (see outline), the benefits of Cloud native technologies and new architectures for the systems we design and build. In general, it is safe to say that modern
systems tend to be event-based and have Cloud-native architectures that favor short-time-to-value and agility over home grown infrastructure and local optimizations.
An important new type of technology is emerging along with the need to use data to improve the competitive advantage and performance of organizations: dataplatforms.
Dataplatforms move beyond the data storage infrastructure of databases. Dataplatforms allow organizations to make a split between the lifecycle of applications and data by hiding the infrastructure footprint of individual database and other storage technologies.
Dataplatforms not only allow you to store your data using technology agnostic models, but they also manage the security and access to the data, are aware of how to handle privacy sensitivity of the data and support features for data lineage and provenance (answering questions like where the data originated from, who accessed it and how it has changed).
InformationGrid is a dataplatform. Apart from the features mentioned above it also supports advanced features like time traveling (allowing you to answer the question: what was the status of data on a moment in the past), context-aware, attribute-based access control, support for rapid application development using generative and declarative models and fine-grained security to support out-of-the-box auditing mechanisms.
We currently use InformationGrid as the core of the data strategy for a number of customers. The last one of which we are happy to talk to you about is the use of InformationGrid as the foundation for a large data-sharing program in the Netherlands that could very well scale up into Europe. (https://dmi-ecosysteem.nl)
How do we model data
One of the things that is changing rapidly is the way we model data. For years we have been modelling data to capture the so-called end state of the data of a system. And apart from being large and complex, these models, also called canonical models, try to capture the real-world solution in a static model.
With the increasing pace of change, we see a move towards event-based modeling. This approach metaphorically uses a movie approach to modeling instead of using pictures to capture the data of a system.
Effectively, this means that data is modeled using the events in an organization and that complex end-states are calculated and created whenever they are necessary.
For more information about this topic see this video on Youtube by our colleague Veselin Vasilev.
Using this approach we have offered solutions in education (capturing events about student performance instead of only registering administrative structures), health data sharing, tracked webshop performance and profiles of customers and improved navigation schemes of large ships.
On behalf the InformationGrid teams,
Snah
Hans Bossenbroek
Ready to start shaping the business of tomorrow?
[email] or call [phone number]