A canonical model is a
design pattern
A design pattern is the re-usable form of a solution to a design problem. The idea was introduced by the architect Christopher Alexander and has been adapted for various other disciplines, particularly software engineering. The " Gang of Four" ...
used to communicate between different data formats. Essentially: create a data model which is a superset of all the others ("canonical"), and create a "translator" module or layer to/from which all existing modules exchange data with other modules. The canonical model acts as a middleman. Each model now only needs to know how to communicate with the canonical model and doesn't need to know the implementation details of the other modules.
Details
A form of
enterprise application integration, it is intended to reduce costs and standardize on agreed data definitions associated with integrating business systems. A canonical model is any model that is
canonical
The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean 'according to the canon' the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, ''canonical exampl ...
in nature, meaning a model that is in the simplest form possible based on a standard enterprise application integration (EAI) solution. Most organizations also adopt a set of standards for message structure and content (message payload). The desire for consistent message payload results in the construction of an enterprise or business domain canonical model common view within a given context. Often the term canonical model is used interchangeably with integration strategy and often entails a move to a message-based integration methodology. A typical migration from point-to-point canonical data model, an enterprise design pattern which provides common data naming, definition and values within a generalized data framework. Advantages of using a canonical data model are reducing the number of data translations and reducing the maintenance effort.
Adoption of a comprehensive enterprise interfacing to message-based integration begins with a decision on the
middleware
Middleware is a type of computer software program that provides services to software applications beyond those available from the operating system. It can be described as "software glue".
Middleware makes it easier for software developers to imple ...
to be used to transport messages between endpoints. Often this decision results in the adoption of an
enterprise service bus
An enterprise service bus (ESB) implements a communication system between mutually interacting software applications in a service-oriented architecture (SOA). It represents a software architecture for distributed computing, and is a special vari ...
(ESB) or enterprise application integration (EAI) solution. Most organizations also adopt a set of standards for message structure and content (message payload). The desire for consistent message payload results in the construction of an enterprise form of
XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. These constrai ...
built from the common model objects thus providing the desired consistency and re-usability while ensuring data integrity.
See also
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Canonical schema pattern
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Common data model
A common data model (CDM) can refer to any standardised data model which allows for data and information exchange between different applications and data sources. Common data models aim to standardise logical infrastructure so that related applica ...
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Enterprise information integration
Enterprise information integration (EII) is the ability to support a unified view of data and information for an entire organization. In a data virtualization application of EII, a process of information integration, using data abstraction to ...
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Enterprise integration
Enterprise integration is a technical field of enterprise architecture, which is focused on the study of topics such as system interconnection, electronic data interchange, product data exchange and distributed computing environments.
It is a con ...
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Information architecture
Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging ...
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List of XML schemas
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Service-oriented architecture
In software engineering, service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural style that focuses on discrete services instead of a monolithic design. SOA is a good choice for system integration. By consequence, it is also applied in the field ...
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Web service
A web service (WS) is either:
* a service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating with each other via the Internet, or
* a server running on a computer device, listening for requests at a particular port over a n ...
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XML schema
An XML schema is a description of a type of XML document, typically expressed in terms of constraints on the structure and content of documents of that type, above and beyond the basic syntactical constraints imposed by XML itself. These constrai ...
References
Bibliography
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*{{cite web , url=http://www.enterpriseintegrationpatterns.com/ramblings/03_hubandspoke.html , title=Metadata Hub and Spokes (Canonical Data Domain)
External links
Forrester Research, Canonical Model Management ForumCanonical Model, Canonical Schema, and Event Driven SOA Forrester Research, Canonical Information Modeling
Enterprise application integration
Enterprise architecture
Enterprise modelling
Software design patterns