Data Integration Strategies
To be a useful information integration tool, a topic map system must enable integration of data from a wide variety of external data sources.
One element of this requirement, that of a standardised protocol infrastructure, is met by the use of XML Web Services and a topic map engine with a web services interface for retrieval and update enables cross-platform integration to be achieved using commonly available tools for web services development.
However, there is also a deeper, architectural consideration involved in integrating data sources with a topic map system and that is the method by which data is integrated. In this article we discuss several architectural approaches and their relative strengths and weaknesses.
This article will be available on the site in a few days time.