Here is wikipedia.org definition of IT Federation:
A Federation is multiple computing and/or network providers agreeing upon standards of operation in a collective fashion. The term may be used when describing the inter-operation of two distinct, formally disconnected, telecommunications networks that may have different internal structures. The term may also be used when groups attempt to delegate collective authority of development to prevent fragmentation.
Well, it doesn't tell a lot, except it says about multiple computers working together. I see two distinct ways to achieve such interoperability:
- data integration, traditionally called ETL (extract, transform and load), where data from a data source is physically moved to another data source. A data integration has the benefits of all the data will be concentrated into one single repository, which addresses an intriguing question about a CMDB: without bringing the data together, how can we build a CMDB if the data sits in an external data without any kind of Change Management process to update it?
- use tools, like IBM InfoSphere Federation Server to portrait the data as a single repository, even if it resides physically in many data sources. The main advantage of this approach is the fact that the data doesn't need to be synchronized and it's retrieved only when needed. It creates the issue of how to keep track of CMDB changes when there are many data sources, and the associated products are updating the data sources at their own will.
My recommendation for a CMDB is to have a balance between data integration and real-time federation, where the key attributes of brought to a centralized database and unsupervised or volatile attributes are kept in their original data sources.
Next I will talk how reconciliation is related to federation and CMDB.
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