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Web Services
For data integration over the internet, there is a more recent technology that allows for "live" updates of data - web services. A web service is a process that exists on one or more web services that "talks" directly to an application running on another computer. There is some similarity to the batch approach, but the idea behind the web service approach is that as data is changed at one location (on the ContactTracker server) a transaction is sent to the web service at the manufacturer or head-office that immediately updates the equivalent data at that location. See figure 2 below, for more information.
In this diagram, transactions are generated from the hosted ContactTracker database - such as when new sales are added, or services are performed - and this data is immediately sent to the manufacturer or head-office. A corresponding web service "waits" for these transactions and updates the back-end database at the time.
Similarly, transactions are generated when changes are made to data in the back-end system. When these changes are made, a transaction is created and data is sent to the ContactTracker hosted server where a corresponding process updates the ContactTracker database.
This model is ideally suited for data that needs to be kept up-to-date in something approaching real-time.
Often, actual implementation will be a combination of batch transfer and real-time transfer - depending on the business requirements. Vital Software have many years experience with data integration, in both automotive and non-automotive industries and web-based and non-web-based environments. In addition Vital Software are members of AutoDESA - the Australian Automotive Data Exchange Standards organisation.
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