For Application Development & Program Management Professionals (Length: 20 pages)

Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

Enterprises are facing the growing challenges of using disparate sources of data managed by different applications, including problems with data integration, security, performance, availability, and quality. Business users want fast, real-time, and reliable information to make business decisions, while IT wants to lower costs, minimize complexity, and improve operational efficiency. New technology is emerging that Forrester has coined "information fabric," a term defined as a virtualized data layer that integrates heterogeneous data and content repositories in real time. This technology is provided via middleware components that deliver quality information — "the truth" — when and where it's needed. Products from several major vendors like BEA Systems, IBM, and Oracle — as well as others from small innovators like Tangosol — are evolving to provide information fabric, but today custom integration is required to weave them together. The potential benefits of this technology are so great that enterprises should develop a strategy to leverage information fabric technology as it becomes more widely available.