Where We've Been

When Judith Davis and I co-authored Data Virtualization: Going Beyond Traditional Data Integration to Achieve Business Agility in 2011, we identified the five most popular Data Virtualization usage patterns at that time.

"Data virtualization is a versatile data integration solution that can be deployed to solve a wide range of data integration challenges. Based on nearly ten years of successful implementations, several common usage patterns have emerged to help guide your enterprise's data virtualization adoption strategy.

• BI data federation
• Data warehouse extension
• Enterprise data virtualization layer
• Big data integration
• Cloud data integration"

What's Happening Today

Looking at how our customers are adopting data virtualization today, I am seeing similar use cases. However the mix has changed, especially at the project level, where big data integration and cloud data integration have come to the fore, often ahead of data virtualization's initial use case stalwarts BI data federation and data warehouse extension.(Note: enterprise data virtualization continues unabated driven by the same business and technology factors that drive logical data warehouse and other enterprise-scale data initiatives.)

Through a business lens, this makes sense. Revenue, and its close twin customer engagement, are the most important boardroom topics today. As such big data driven analytics and customer-centric cloud applications, including CRM, marketing automation and social media have risen in import. Furthermore, with high productivity more important than ever, collaboration tools have also rapidly advanced. The capabilities and economics of these offers are too compelling to resist.  And thus integrating data from these sources has become increasingly important.

Responding to the Trend

As data virtualization's leading solution provider, Cisco has responded to these evolved needs by adding over 20 new big data and cloud adapters in our recently announced Cisco Information Server 7.0.3 release.

These adapters simplify and accelerate virtual data integration development so you can connect to these sources faster and more easily than ever.

New CRM and ERP Adapters

CRM and ERP are the backbone of enterprise IT and thus key sources for many data integration efforts. CIS 7.0.3 adds Microsoft Dynamics CRM, GP and NAV along with NetSuite ERP + CRM to an already deep Oracle EBS and Siebel, mySAP and SAPBW, and Salesforce adapter lineup.

Marketing Automation Adapters

In today's competitive world, every enterprise strives from better customer engagement. Marketing automation solutions such as Hubspot, Marketo and Oracle Eloqua along with the ubiquitous Google Adwords and Analytics are leading solutions in this market. CIS 7.0.3 adds adaptors for all these sources.

Social Media Adapters

What do your customers really think about your company and offerings?   To find out you need to monitor Facebook, LinkedIn, RSS, and Twitter. With CIS 7.0.3, we've made that easy to do.

Collaboration Adapters

Effective collaboration is a critical success factor in every aspect of business today. Tools such as email, Google Apps and Spreadsheets, as well as Microsoft Active Directory, SharePoint and SharePoint Excel Services are key enablers of effective and efficient collaboration. CIS 7.0.3 provides adapters to all these collaboration sources so you can add these insights to your analysis.

NoSQL and Cloud Database Adapters

Cisco has integrated big data sources since CIS 6 in June 2011. Each release since then has added new big data distributions and other NoSQL sources. CIS 7.0.3 is no exception adding Amazon DynamoDB, Google BigQuery and MongoDB.

What's Your Next Data Virtualization Frontier?

When it comes to data virtualization, a lot has changed in the past five years. New releases such as Cisco Information Server 7.0.3 continue to advance the art of the possible, especially with respect to myriad new apps and technologies that have extended each enterprise's data landscape.

Lots of others are using data virtualization to win with the agility and insight their data provides. Peter Memon of J.P. Morgan shares how his team delivers true value to the business with complex IT landscapes and urgent data needs.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZT5VC94fVA

How do you plan to take advantage?

For a jumpstart, check out CIS 7.0.3. You'll be glad you did.

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Learn More from My Colleagues

Check out the blogs of Mala Anand, Mike Flannagan and Kevin Ott to learn more.