BEA AquaLogic™ Data Services PlatformThe Live Data Engine Powering the Service-Driven Enterprise

Executive overview

In any industry, in any region organizations are poweredby information—to understand the business andmake decisions, to serve customers, partners oremployees, or to support business processes andapplications. Data is at the core of all business activity.But, organizations across the globe are faced withthe problem of accessing the data easily, consistently,and securely. Data is everywhere—with an increasinggrowth rate, with diverse types of data sources, manyoften in proprietary formats, and with it being decen-tralized due to ongoing mergers and acquisitions,technology limitations or organizational structures.Likewise, data management is difficult when thereare numerous, different consumers of the data suchas people processes and applications, coupled with demanding requirements such as real-timeinformation that can be readily acted upon and issecure. So, how does an organization get liveinformation they need? Delivering data as a servicethrough Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) is a best path to getting there.

SOA brings a fundamental change to the need andvalue of data although it does not necessarily hide or resolve the data management issues. Instead,organizations need a better way to work withenterprise data regardless of where it resides andwhat type of data format it's in. The answer is dataservices and a data services layer. A data serviceslayer provides data mediation or abstraction betweenthe different consumers of the data and the diversedata sources. It not only insulates against impacts tounderlying sources but also provides a common APIfor all application development and maintenance.Data services are virtual, aggregated views of the data,leveraged from sources across the enterprise—simplifying data access and updates and, oncecreated, reusable again and again. As such, dataservices are an essential component to an SOA and service infrastructure.

AquaLogic Data Services Platform is the industryleading data services platform that delivers live,integrated and reusable information as a service,where you need it and regardless of where it resides.

Product Data Sheet

Enable a business-friendly, unified view of enterprise data pulled from any source acrossthe organization. BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform allows data services to functionas a single access point for consistent, actionable and reusable information-for fastertime-to-value, reduced total cost of ownership and greater business agility.

It offers a unique metadata-driven approach, calleddeclarative programming. This approach helpseliminate the need for application developers to buildworkflows or code Java by hand, making it possibleto automate data service creation and maintenance.It helps customers achieve faster time-to-value,reduced TCO and greater business agility.

The foundation for SOA

BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform has been

engineered from the start to address the require-

ments for data services within an SOA. It offers

automation for both read and write services, optimized

composition of databases, Web services and other

sources, modeling and metadata management for

data services, and policy-driven security and caching.

Furthermore, BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform

offers fast path integration with BEA AquaLogic

Service Bus. In the past, these products communi-

cated via standard Web services. Now, there is a

native custom transport to invoke data services

directly for enhanced performance and better security.

Each of these features is critical to building and

maintaining an enterprise-ready data services layer.

Metadata-driven approachDeclarative programming lets data service architectsand developers define which services they want andwhat data and services they are based on; then BEAAquaLogic Data Services Platform figures out thebest algorithms for providing the desired services. It chooses the appropriate ordering of data sourceaccesses, orchestrating the underlying service callsand, in the case of relational database sources,generates a set of appropriate SQL queries. Itsupports a rich set of algorithms for creating efficientSQL queries that delegate as much queryprocessing to the underlying relational databasesources for overall system performance.

Flexible and rich toolingIn a SOA environment, a data model must be flexibleso that it can represent any complex entity and richenough to provide information about data structure,relationships and about services to read or update.BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform provides allthe tools to easily create model diagrams usingsimple drag-and-drop interactions. Data services areillustrated in model diagrams and can easily beshared with others in the enterprise for greater dataconsistency and reuse.

Product Data Sheet BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform

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Service Infrastructure

Application Infrastructure

To help IT departments make an efficient transition to SOA,BEA AquaLogic Data ServicesPlatform provides the foundationfor a strategic information dataservices layer to access, update,and maintain heterogeneous,distributed, and real-time data.

Enterprise Data Services Layer

IT Landscape

Executive Dashboard

CustomerPortal

HR Data Promotions Database

Order Entry

Product Catalogs

Syndicated, Third-party

Data

Expence Reporting

Research &Intelligence

ExternalData Sources MRP Purchasing Pricing Sales

Forecasts Support BillPayment

BPM ESB B2C Portal

Mappings and transformations can be defined in aGUI tool with a library of over 200 functions. Forcomplex mappings and transformations, architectsand developers can bypass the GUI tool and use anXQuery source code editor to define or edit services.The editor provides real-time feedback about thecorrectness of the query, as well as usability-enhancing features.

Bilingual engine: SQL or XQuery?BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform providesdata services to numerous different clients or con-sumers of the data through a variety of interfaces tomeet the needs of the organization. It can fluentlyspeak both XQuery and SQL—there is no translatorneeded, enhancing overall performance and providinga greater return on investment by enabling moreclients to consume data services. With XQuery, thismeans that BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platformprovides a flexible query facility to retrieve, transformand aggregate data into XML documents. It providesdata service architect with extreme flexibility to meetSOA needs by querying diverse data sourcesincluding structured and semi-structured sources,relational sources, and Web services. With SQL, itmeans that BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platformprovides a virtual relational database interface to

those applications via JDBC or ODBC. It augments BI and reporting tools with current,transactional data from both relational and non-relational sources. BEA AquaLogic Data ServicesPlatform not only provides connectivity to BIreporting tools but also is certified with the industryleading vendors.

Live data to the business user with Microsoft® Excel

Microsoft Excel has long been the de facto applicationfor manipulating, analyzing and reporting data usingspreadsheets. Traditional data integration into Exceloccurred by hand entry, importing data from anotherfile or writing an intermediate program such asVisual Basic or a macro to pull data from anothersource. BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platformoffers an Excel Add-in so that organizations candeliver real-time data regardless of where it is storedto the business user when they need it to do theirjob, not only alleviating the large amount of time andhigh cost of traditional data integration projects thatheavily rely on IT, but also increasing user productivity.

Never met a data source we didn’t like

BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform easily works

with an organization’s complex IT environment. It

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BEA AquaLogic Data ServicesPlatform enables organizations tocreate virtual, aggregated viewsof data coming from distributed,diverse data sources.

provides access to a range of data sources

including relational sources such as Oracle, Sybase,

SQL Server, Informix, and DB2 or packaged applica-

tions such as Oracle, Peoplesoft, SAP and Siebel,

custom applications, files, Web services and

XML-based sources.

No sacrifice on security

SOA breaks the tight binding between applicationsand data; applications will no longer care or knowabout the underlying source. Likewise with SOA,data will be consumed in many more and differentways than in the past. As a result, providing robustsecurity over the data is paramount.

BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform providesboth coarse-grained and fine-grained security. Forexample, for coarse-grain, it can protect resourcessuch as data service functions (such as read,navigate or submit functions) and for fine-grainarchitects and application developers can specifywhat elements within the data service need to beprotected or redacted based on security policies(such as credit approval would be allowed to get allcustomer data including social security number butall roles outside would not be able to view socialsecurity number).

BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform alsosupports data-driven security where access controlpolicies are based on specific values of the dataelements of a data service (such as users who weregranted role of premium sales should be allowed tosee customer orders greater than 10,000; the role ofsales would only be granted access to those ordersunder 10,000).

Unparalleled transaction management

While some applications or processes only need toread or access the data, others may require updatesor writes to the distributed, original sources. For thelatter, BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform,

provides a number of automated services to handleupdates to data sources. This includes auto-generated SQL update statements, concurrencymanagement to ensure proper data integrity, andtransactional updates to XA-compliant data sources,including two-phase commit.

BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform can help

organizations quickly benefit from enterprise-wide

data services through faster time-to-value, business

agility, and reduced cost and complexity.

Faster time-to-value

Using BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform,

SOA architects and developers can rapidly develop

and deploy a data services layer. It’s capability to

quickly discover, create, and reuse existing data

services directly impacts project times from months

to weeks or days.

Improve business agility

The BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform helps

turn complex data inside existing IT systems into

real-time actionable information. It facilitates higher

levels of data consistency across applications and

responsiveness to changing business demands

and requirements.

Reduce cost and complexity

BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform helps lower

overall development and maintenance costs by

simplifying data management. It enables architects

and application developers to create data services

that are reusable and relevant to multiple service

consumers. Applications need only access a single,

unified data services layer to retrieve and update

data from multiple back-end data sources.

For more information

Please visit bea.com/dataservices

Product Data Sheet BEA Aqualogic Data Services Platform

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Features Benefits

Data services—“What, not how”

Querying, not coding Developers can create data services by writing simple queries against a unified

model, eliminating the need to write code to access, transform, and merge

information from multiple sources. This makes data services faster to write and

easier to maintain, reuse, and extend, without requiring expensive integration

resources or extensive coding.

Data service decomposition Analyzes, composes, and optimizes individual queries and sub-queries such that

the required underlying sources are accessed and only relevant data is returned.

Distributed query optimization Includes a robust distributed query optimizer. Based on data source capabilities,

it delegates as much work to the underlying sources as possible and employs

efficient join techniques. Developers can create efficient data services without

writing complex code.

Data transformation Data architects can map data from underlying sources into desired schemas via

powerful XQuery-based data manipulation and transformation tools. This shields

developers from source complexity, simplifying application development.

Policy-based caching Optimizes system performance by managing the trade-off between response time

and freshness of information, through caching of frequently used data services.

Rapid development and reuse

Data service design Data architects and developers can create unified views and queries rapidly using a

graphical drag-and-drop tool. BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform discovers

metadata from physical sources, reducing overall development time and costs.

Data service reuse Improves IT productivity by enabling creation and reuse of data services across

multiple applications. Developers can publish data services once, and then reuse

them across multiple projects—portals, Web applications, and business processes—

accelerating time-to-value of project delivery.

Data services for SOA Developers can easily publish data services as Web services, allowing business

information can be accessed and reused as services in an SOA. This enables data

delivery for SOA.

Fast path integration with BEA AquaLogic Service Bus provides native transport

between products. Custom service bus transport invokes data services directly using

RMI for better performance and security.

Integrates with BEA AquaLogic and BEA WebLogic products as well as interoperable

with other SOA products including enterprise service buses, service registries,

portals, BPMs, external security providers, etc.

Unified data access Developers can save application development time and costs by rapidly utilizing

data services. Data services provide a single, unified interface to all enterprise data

regardless of where it resides, simplifying application development.

Data service updates Provides a number of automated services to handle updates to data sources. This

includes auto-generated SQL update statements, concurrency management to

ensure proper data integrity, and transactional updates to XA-compliant data sources,

including two-phase commit.

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Product Data Sheet BEA Aqualogic Data Services Platform

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Application maintainability Application developers can respond to new business requirements or changes in

IT infrastructure quickly while isolating applications from underlying data sources.

Developers can now change a single data service—as opposed to changing many

lines of code in multiple calling applications—dramatically simplifying application

maintenance.

Data service dependency and Offers visual data lineage graph and tools to conduct impact analysis between a data

impact analysis service and backend data sources for greater visibility without having to inspect code.

BEA BEA WebLogic Workshop® Developers can create BEA BEA WebLogic® applications faster with round-trip visual

integration modeling and data service creation.

Enterprise strength

Secure access to information Delivers granular control over information assets by establishing security policies at

the individual source level and at the data services level, providing coarse-grained,

fine-grained and data-driven security.

Unified administration Reduces training and management costs by providing a single, unified administration

console for data services.

Uniform auditing framework Enables consistent auditing of all data service events across all heterogeneous data

sources for greater compliance and control.

Operational monitoring Captures metrics associated with data service and data source executions to be

streamed to databases, log files or the calling client applications for SLA tracking

and management.

Rich connectivity

Back-end connectivity Data services can access tables, views, stored procedures in all major relational

databases.

Data services can invoke Web services and access non-relational data sources such

as legacy enterprise applications, flat files, XML files and dynamic XML messages.

Leverages Web service-based adapters to packaged applications such as those from

SAP, Oracle, and Siebel.

Client connectivity Developers can access data services through alternative client APIs including the

Java/SDO mediator API, Microsoft ADO.NET services, JDBC, Web services, and

BEA WebLogic Workshop controls. This provides developers with choice and

flexibility in how their applications connect to data services.

Excel Add-in Brings live data from distributed, heterogeneous data sources to the business user

through Microsoft® Excel, alleviating the burden on IT to integrate data while providing

greater office productivity to the user.

Native SQL access Developers can expose data services as SQL objects for access via JDBC interface.

BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform delivers relational data to industry-standard

reporting tools.

Standards

Standards-based Applications can leverage XML, Web services, SQL, JDBC, and J2EE standards.

XQuery Supports querying a broad spectrum of both relational and non-relational information

sources (based on XQuery 1.0).

BEA Systems, Inc.

2315 North First StreetSan Jose, CA 95131

+1.800.817.4BEA (US)+1.408.570.8000

bea.com

Copyright © 2006 BEA Systems,Inc. All rights reserved. BEA, Built on BEA, Jolt, Joltbeans, SteelThread, Top End, Tuxedo, BEA JRockit, BEA Liquid Data for BEA WebLogic, BEABEA WebLogic Server, BEA BEA WebLogic Portal, BEA BEA WebLogic Workshop, and BEA WebLogic are registered trademarks of BEA Systems, Inc. BEA AquaLogic, BEAAquaLogic Data Services Platform, BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Security, BEA AquaLogic Service Bus, BEA dev2dev Subscriptions, BEA eLink, BEA MessageQ, BEA BEA WebLogicCommunications Platform, BEA BEA WebLogic Enterprise, BEA BEA WebLogic Enterprise Platform, BEA BEA WebLogic Enterprise Security, BEA BEA WebLogic Express, BEABEA WebLogic Integration, BEA BEA WebLogic Java Adapter for Mainframe, BEA BEA WebLogic JDriver, BEA BEA WebLogic Log Central, BEA BEA WebLogic NetworkGatekeeper, BEA BEA WebLogic Platform, BEA BEA WebLogic SIP Server, and BEA BEA WebLogic WorkGroup Edition are trademarks of BEA Systems, Inc. BEA Mission CriticalSupport is a service mark of BEA Systems, Inc. All other company and product names may be the subject of intellectual property rights reserved by third parties.September 2006 CDS0946E0605-2B

About BEA

BEA Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: BEAS) is a worldleader in enterprise infrastructure software, deliveringunified SOA platforms for business transformationand optimization. Customers depend on BEATuxedo®, BEA WebLogic®, and AquaLogic™ productlines to help reduce IT complexity and leverageexisting resources—for achieving a state of BusinessLiquidITy™ where enterprise assets are freed up todeliver maximum business value and grow newrevenue streams. Find out more at bea.com.

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Product Data Sheet BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform