›› MIND Lab Seminar Series: 07 April 2008

Information Brokering

Saurabh Kulkarni
M.S. Student in Telecommunications, University of Maryland, College Park

›› Logistics

Date: Monday, 07 April 2008

Time: 1:00p to 2:00p

Location: AVW 4185

›› Abstract

Information Brokering is about making data available to the users who need it. A user may want to search for the required data in multiple available data sources which fall under the jurisdiction of various entities(organization/teams/people). Information Brokering makes sure that a single search query from the user hits all the possible data sources simultaneously thus reducing the search time for the user and is easy to use. It provides users access to disparate data sources across various organizations (or we can say entities) thus building an information sharing network while maintaining the security and integrity of the data.

In this system, the owner of the data has full control of the access permissions to his or her data. The data from the different data sources is never cached in a central server like in a data warehouse. All the data sources are queried in real time. This also involves implementing a complex access control and security system to comply with various security and access control policies of the various entities that own the data sources.

We currently have an implementation of such a system done by VAI. The DIG and the VisuaLinks demonstrate such a system architecture that will be further developed to meet the security needs of the organizations planning to use Information Brokering to a greater extent.