IDENTITY CHALLENGE

• » Providing consistent access and services to data located in multiple systems.

Overview:

Government agencies have enormous investments in various data repositories, and over time, the number of repositories continues to grow. Each system has its primary purpose, but often it would be useful to leverage data from different sources together as if it all existed in one data source. Unfortunately, the only way to achieve this today is by manually assembling reports to correlate related data together.

For instance, one database may contain information organized by a service, such as driving records. A second database may contain data organized in a completely different manner, such as information about state services provided by county. But sometimes the same user exist in both data sources, so getting a proper record that ties the two together usually involves a lot of manual labor, such as "flipping between applications".

There is an alternative to the manual work involved with using related data as if it were in a single data source. The process of correlating this data together is called using data in context, so that accessing one piece of data leads to other related information. In order to make context usable by computer applications, it should be available through an existing, well-defined protocol, so that existing applications can take advantage of it without recoding.

Solution:

Virtualizing multiple data sources together and integrating based on some of the criteria shared between them delivers the powerful notion of context in a manner that's easy to integrate with existing or new applications.

Virtualization provides an LDAP interface and a directory tree structure to access data organized in context. The original data may exist in a multitude of data sources, but in the virtual directory structure, it can be accessed, searched and leveraged as if it all existed in a single directory tree. Because it is virtual, the RadiantOne Identity and Context Virtualization Platform is able to show more than one "view" of the data, with each view representing a different tree structure, schema, etc to meet particular requirements.

To apply the concept of context to real-life, imagine how identities apply to non-living entities, such as the business process to approving a budget. The process is defined not only by the budget's actual data (a list of expenses), but also a great deal of metadata as well (the owners, benefits, dependents, contingencies, repercussions) and that isn't contained in the same database as the budget.

Many man-hours are spent doing research and creating new reports to find the facts and figures associated with metadata, or to enter and re-enter data, because there's no automated way to correlate that much information from one data source to another.

With virtualization, the ability to browse a directory tree and virtualizing the entries that appear at particular points of the tree creates the context on the fly. Navigating the directory structure allows one to use data to find other related data through a consistent interface, even when the physical boundaries cross different data systems.

Dynamically query info on the dependents and represent them in a separate subtree. Perform cross-system searches where it can compare the values in one database correlated with the values in another. It provides a new way to look at all the data, in a way that applications understand, using a consistent interface and access protocol (LDAP, DSML, HTTP/SOAP) already supported by many applications.

Results:

The end result is a system for examining, searching, and using all data as if it existed in a single data resource. Applications, data processing, reporting, and usage become more efficient and effective. Context is the key to having data know how to use other related data, making the connection on its own so you don't have to do it manually. Virtualization makes context more effective by making transitions seamless, consistent and simple, and is one of the core design principles behind RadiantOne Identity and Context Virtualization Platform.