Pattern Diagram (Option 1)

The second is to map the virtual view(s) to underlying BI web services that will retrieve the necessary data from the BI systems as required. These BI web services will typically be BI tool reports and queries published as web services on the BI platform being used. The data virtualization server simply calls the appropriate BI tool(s) via a web service interface to run the report/query to get the data needed to calculate key performance indicators (KPIs) that appear in the performance management scorecard(s).

Pattern Diagram (Option 2)

Pattern Example Use Case

A manufacturer with different lines of business may want to monitor the total cost of shrinkage over all product lines to compare against targets.  A bank may have different BI systems monitoring risk exposure for each of its product lines (e.g. mortgages, credit cards, loans) and wants to monitor corporate exposure across all product lines to see if exposure is in line with targets.

Reasons For Using It

Many companies with multiple line of business (LoB) BI systems cannot answer enterprise level questions. This requires enterprise key performance indicators to be calculated by aggregating LoB metrics in multiple BI systems.

In my next blog we will look at the Data Discovery pattern. Click here for more information on Data Governance