Data Virtualization

Data virtualization is the process of retrieve data from various resources without knowing its type and physical location where it is stored. It collects heterogeneous data from different resources and allows data users across the organization to access this data according to their work requirements. This heterogeneous data can be accessed using any application such as web portals, web services, E-commerce, Software as a Service (SaaS), and mobile application.

We can use Data Virtualization in the field of data integration, business intelligence, and cloud computing.

Advantages of Data Virtualization

There are the following advantages of data virtualization -

• It allows users to access the data without worrying about where it resides on the memory.
• It offers better customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue growth.
• It provides various security mechanism that allows users to safely store their personal and professional information.
• It reduces costs by removing data replication.
• It provides a user-friendly interface to develop customized views.
• It provides various simple and fast deployment resources.
• It increases business user efficiency by providing data in real-time.
• It is used to perform tasks such as data integration, business integration, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) data services, and enterprise search.

Disadvantages of Data Virtualization

• It creates availability issues, because availability is maintained by third-party providers.
• It required a high implementation cost.
• It creates the availability and scalability issues.
• Although it saves time during the implementation phase of virtualization but it consumes more time to generate the appropriate result.

Uses of Data Virtualization

There are the following uses of Data Virtualization -

1. Analyze performance

Data virtualization is used to analyze the performance of the organization compared to previous years.

2. Search and discover interrelated data

Data Virtualization (DV) provides a mechanism to easily search the data which is similar and internally related to each other.

3. Agile Business Intelligence

It is one of the most common uses of Data Virtualization. It is used in agile reporting, real-time dashboards that require timely aggregation, analyze and present the relevant data from multiple resources. Both individuals and managers use this to monitor performance, which helps to make daily operational decision processes such as sales, support, finance, logistics, legal, and compliance.

4. Data Management

Data virtualization provides a secure centralized layer to search, discover, and govern the unified data and its relationships.

Data Virtualization Tools

There are the following Data Virtualization tools -

1. Red Hat JBoss data virtualization

Red Hat virtualization is the best choice for developers and those who are using micro services and containers. It is written in Java.

2. TIBCO data virtualization

TIBCO helps administrators and users to create a data virtualization platform for accessing the multiple data sources and data sets. It provides a builtin transformation engine to combine non-relational and un-structured data sources.

3. Oracle data service integrator

It is a very popular and powerful data integrator tool which is mainly worked with Oracle products. It allows organizations to quickly develop and manage data services to access a single view of data.

4. SAS Federation Server

SAS Federation Server provides various technologies such as scalable, multi-user, and standards-based data access to access data from multiple data services. It mainly focuses on securing data.

5. Denodo

Denodo is one of the best data virtualization tools which allows organizations to minimize the network traffic load and improve response time for large data sets. It is suitable for both small as well as large organizations.

Industries that use Data Virtualization

• Communication & Technology
  In Communication & Technology industry, data virtualization is used to increase revenue per customer, create a real-time ODS for marketing, manage customers, improve customer insights, and optimize customer care, etc.
• Finance
  In the field of finance, DV is used to improve trade reconciliation, empowering data democracy, addressing data complexity, and managing fixed-risk income.
• Government
  In the government sector, DV is used for protecting the environment.
• Healthcare
  Data virtualization plays a very important role in the field of healthcare. In healthcare, DV helps to improve patient care, drive new product innovation, accelerating M&A synergies, and provide a more efficient claims analysis.
• Manufacturing
  In manufacturing industry, data virtualization is used to optimize a global supply chain, optimize factories, and improve IT assets utilization.