My VLDB Keynote: Web 2.0 on Info 2.0

In my previous posting, I had talked about my VLDB 2006 keynote.  I just delivered that in the "Land of Morning Calm,".  Unfortunately, I did not get to stay (I had to rush back), but it was an interesting visit.  Essentially, I was addressing the leading database researchers.  The points I made were the following:

1. If one agrees with Carlota Perez, then we are just entering a gloden age of deployment of IT.  This mass deployment will happen around the web style architectures.
2. Data Management research has had a tremendous influence on traditional IT architectures, separating application logic from data, spurring mass growth in apps, and in accompanying data management business.  Web 1.0 was not influenced by data management research at all, and in Web 1.5 (what I call enterprise SOA architectures), the influence is more limited, though growing.  In Web 2.0, we have a chance to be the same fuel for growth as we were in the traditional IT space.
3. While Web 2.0 is about many things, the thing that makes the most difference in my mind is "application assembly" that will deliver situational applications to the enterprise and web users.  And the application assembly will not succeed without an Info 2. mashup fabric.  The fabric technology will manifest itself as software in the enterprise, and as a SaaS on the web. 
4. While a lot of our earlier work is applicable here, the key driver needs to be "simple interfaces" that hide a lot of complexity in the fabric.  And two things have changed in the recent past to make this easier now than before.  (i) the search technologies have evolved to a point where a lot of underlying complexity can be hidden behind simpler interfaces and (ii) many more standardization functions now exist on the web, and equally importantly, within the enterprise in the form of master data management systems.
5. If we take an example of Pete, an insurance agent in Florida, who is told to assemble the risk of his company based on a storm that is moving in, needs to "mashup" his excel spreadheet of the company employees with a mythical web site www.floodlevels.com, which in itself is a mashup of "water.usgs.gov" (which is the current state of the gage heights) with "edc.usgs.gov" (which is an elevation map). 
6. We can think of several ways that Pete could specify what he wants (a PHP program, and XQuery, a GUI interface, or finally, a search query that says "flood levels in the zip codes in clients.xls".  The research question is how do we go from PHP to the search query, without sacrificing the quality of the results.  And for that we need the right analytics, the right integration technologies, the right (minimal) semantics to make this succeed.  Within the enterprise, we need to take care of privacy, security and lineage. 
7. At IBM, we are doing a lot fo research in the area of simple interfaces to complex integration tasks (across structured and unstructured dtaa sources).  All of this, and other services (such as screen scraping, connectors to enterprise and web standardization services), and prepackaged tooling to make the information assembly easier, come together in our MAFIA efforts (we are still at the beginning of the technological evolution here).  Other partners of IBM, such as www.justsystems.com with their xfy engine are working with us on a similar vision, and many university efforts are also going on.  Send me information on things that you feel are in a similar space. 

To summarize, Web style architectures and Web 2.0 style situational applications will happen with or without Information Management involvement.  If the Information Management community gets its act together, we have a chance to be a strong fuel of their growth.  And the time to act is now!

Comments

[Roger]

Considering the quality & depth of your blog posting i really want to appreciate your efforts. Thanks for such info rich postings please keep writing more for people interested in building their career in data management / storage

Thanks

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