"The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple." -Oscar Wilde
Seems like the source of truth is hard to obtain. Most of the data we receive in our daily lives to be processed has been passed through, and transformed, by many layers by the time it is ready for our consumption.
Seems like the source of truth is hard to obtain. Most of the data we receive in our daily lives to be processed has been passed through, and transformed, by many layers by the time it is ready for our consumption.
How many times have you read an article and consumed its content to find a link at the bottom "Original Article"? Have you clicked it? How many times do you need to do that to get to the original reporting source? How much was the point of view adjusted for the sake of the outlet presenting the reiteration?
I see this concept mirrored through out the world as well as locally in my personal life and career. My career in informatics has been a quest for the most ideal source of data. Oddly enough, I find that the source of truth, relating to data, typically is in older monolithic type applications that are difficult to work with. This causes the need for shadow copies, extractions, batches, etc... All that are really removing you from the source of truth.
As we move forward into the new web enabled future, we see these issues starting to fade as consumer needs are starting to drive this trend in newer applications. But that still leaves our legacy systems and how to handle them.
Unfortunately there is no one solution that will work across the board. Applications/Systems will have to be analyzed and some type of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) middleware solution will need to be developed to serve the data up as close to the source of truth as possible. These applications will bridge the gap from the systems that need the data, and the systems that provide data. A sophisticated solution would be the ability for the middleware to monitor and serve the data from the source of truth to all requesting clients. Old stop gap systems of batch extracts and ad hock requests will be replaced by a new standardized methodology. You can almost see this middleware as becoming the new source of truth by replacing the old methedologies with a unified solution, and being the sole provider of the true sources data.
"First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure." -Mark Twain
The end result will be middleware serving requests and providing data as close to the source of truth as possible ensuring that all requests are using the data in the same fashion.
The plus is that you ensure that everything looks at the source of truth the same way. Meaning, this will make sure that there is no ambiguity in the data as all customers interpret it the same way.
The negative is that you ensure that everything looks at the source of truth the same way. Meaning, that if the data was interpreted incorrectly, this now incorrect interpretation is being used across the board.
And of course the strive for the source of truth means getting to the data with the least amount of interpretation possible. Which would be one of the major goals of a middleware system that serves data.
Simple, sure. But interesting to find how many layers we are usually removed from the data we are digesting and whatever source of truth it came from.
As we move forward into the new web enabled future, we see these issues starting to fade as consumer needs are starting to drive this trend in newer applications. But that still leaves our legacy systems and how to handle them.
Unfortunately there is no one solution that will work across the board. Applications/Systems will have to be analyzed and some type of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) middleware solution will need to be developed to serve the data up as close to the source of truth as possible. These applications will bridge the gap from the systems that need the data, and the systems that provide data. A sophisticated solution would be the ability for the middleware to monitor and serve the data from the source of truth to all requesting clients. Old stop gap systems of batch extracts and ad hock requests will be replaced by a new standardized methodology. You can almost see this middleware as becoming the new source of truth by replacing the old methedologies with a unified solution, and being the sole provider of the true sources data.
"First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure." -Mark Twain
The end result will be middleware serving requests and providing data as close to the source of truth as possible ensuring that all requests are using the data in the same fashion.
The plus is that you ensure that everything looks at the source of truth the same way. Meaning, this will make sure that there is no ambiguity in the data as all customers interpret it the same way.
The negative is that you ensure that everything looks at the source of truth the same way. Meaning, that if the data was interpreted incorrectly, this now incorrect interpretation is being used across the board.
And of course the strive for the source of truth means getting to the data with the least amount of interpretation possible. Which would be one of the major goals of a middleware system that serves data.
Simple, sure. But interesting to find how many layers we are usually removed from the data we are digesting and whatever source of truth it came from.
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