It’s a powerful combination: Data Virtualization and
SharePoint. SharePoint 2013, the most recent release, supports broader-than-ever opportunities for data integration and data-centric implementations.
SharePoint has evolved to include its availability as a service in the cloud
and a hybrid architecture, along with its fully on premise model.
The availability of these alternate architectures is a
compelling argument for adopting SharePoint for many types of applications
beyond the historical content management uses. The rich Business Connectivity
Services (BCS) provide a range of features that are data-centric, elevating
SharePoint to another level as a platform for applications, dashboards, and BI tools.
As implementations mature, though, certain requirements are
coming to the forefront. In particular, the reality of most applications is
that data needs are not limited to a single data source, or even a single data
source type, which is a limitation of not only SharePoint, but of the
third-party vendors that provide connectivity. The potential of the built-in
powerful BCS is not fully leveraged, and the end result is either limited scope
of applications or the need to build a staging database either on premise or in
the cloud, the latter of which brings additional security concerns for many
customers.
The ideal use of SharePoint leverages BCS to access data
live from the original sources, validates the data, presents it to the end
user, or application for action or editing, and pushes changes back to the
original sources without ever saving it anywhere. End user security ensures
that end users only see or edit data to which they have access.
This is what Data Virtualization (DV) brings to the table,
and Stone Bond’s Enterprise Enabler is a full-scope integration platform, with
data federation at its core. The single Integrated Development Environment
(IDE) for development, testing, deployment and monitoring, is built on and
fully extensible with Microsoft .Net. Within a few minutes, one can configure and generate data virtualization in all of the data access modes supported by SharePoint, OData,SOAP, REST, ODBC, ADO.Net, and Enterprise Enabler's Custom Connector.