The DataServices World conference in Silicon Valley provides an opportunity on November 20, 2008 to put data services under a microscope. The conference is co-located with Cloud Computing Expo, SOAWorld and Virtualization Conference at the Fairmont Hotel in San, Jose, California.

The emergence of XML-based web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA) accelerated a trend towards distributed computing and layered software. The adoption of component-based programming and layered software increased with adoption of client-server and multi-tier architecture for enterprise applications. Since grid computing, web-oriented architecture (WOA) and cloud computing gained traction, a design that moves data access logic into a separate data services layer has become critical for performance and scalability.

WOA, SOA, mobile, desktop and multi-mode applications often require persistent data. Components, services and applications might require a mix of data, including heterogeneous sources such as SQL, XML, geo-coded data, legacy databases, ERP suites, and messaging systems.

As developers focused on scalability and performance in applications supporting thousands of concurrent users, they fueled the evolution of architectures for distributed computing.

To meet the persistent data needs of desktop computing, client-server, Internet computing, web services and grid computing, there's been an expanding universe of technologies and application programming interfaces (APIs). With new APIs emerging on a steady basis, keeping up with data access and data services technology is a challenge. To meet the challenge of on-going professional education, we can look to a conference such as DataServices World, which assembles a world-class faculty to explain important technology, trends and best practices.

DataServices World in San Jose
DataServices World is a conference with a focus on data services as a solution for accessing and integrating information from disparate data sources. The conference program includes instruction by thought leaders and experts, including an ACM Fellow, staff scientists from Adobe and IBM, grid computing gurus from m2mi and Yahoo, plus a data services expert from DataDirect Technologies.

Dr. Michael Carey, Bren Professor of Information and Computer Sciences at University of California, Irvine, was designated one of the top 50 most influential computer scientists. He'll be speaking about services modeling for SOA environments. Before moving to academia, Dr. Carey was architect of Oracle Data Services Integrator, formerly BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform.

WOA, Grid and Cloud Computing
Susan Malaika, an XML and grid computing guru at IBM, will discuss Universal Services for building end-to-end XML applications for SOA, WOA and enterprise environments. Susan has been at the forefront of IBM DB2 and XML technologies and participated in development of the Open Grid Forum's Data Access and Integration Services specification.

Adobe Systems has been at the forefront of producing developer tools for crafting rich Internet applications and dual-mode applications. Developing a dual-mode application enables developer to write a single version of source code for implementation on the desktop, mobile devices and in a Web-oriented architecture (WOA). Adobe Principal Scientist Jeff Vroom will deliver a presentation about declarative data management and bound user interface controls, an approach supported with Adobe Flex and Adobe LifeCycle Data Services.

Parand Darugar, Director of Software Architecture at Yahoo!, will discuss grid architecture and processing data in the cloud. At Yahoo, Parand's responsibilities include a grid architecture that sustains Yahoo's advertising business. At DataServices World, he'll discuss the programming model, patterns and best practices for exploiting grid technology and cloud-based data processing.

Geoff Brown, CEO of m2mi Corporation, a NASA technology partner, will speak about services modeling, authorization and authentication, BlazeDS and a global lock box service. The lock box (GlobalLockbox.com) is an example of a data service in the cloud that implements the Open Authorization APIs. The variety of digital information it stores requires a key to access . It supports access from mobile devices such as iPhone and importing data from sources such as SQL databases.

Data Quality and the Future of Databases
The conference program includes a “Data Quality, Data Access and Data Services” workshop moderated by Peter Coffee of salesforce.com. Dr. Stefanos Damianakis of Netrics will explain data matching techniques to ensure data consistency. Tom Tague of Thomson Reuters will discuss the Calais initiative and a data service for imparting semantics to web content and other textual data. Dr. Carlo Innocenti of DataDirect Technologies will discuss using XML and XQuery for integrating data from heterogeneous data sources.

Power Panel
Conference chair Ken North will moderate a power panel discussion about "The Future of Database and Data Services in a Time of SOA and Cloud Computing". Panel members include:

Geoff Brown (CEO m2mi)
Dr. Stefanos Damianakis (CEO, Netrics)
Eric Samson (CTO, DataDirect)
Peter Coffee (Director, salesforce.com)

DataServices World runs November 20, 2008 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. DataServices World is co-located with Cloud Computing Expo, SOAWorld and Virtualization Conference. The keynote presentations are open to people who register for the technical program or the Special Events pass. Details of the conference agenda for all four events are at the DataServices World web site.