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Concepts Guide

# Architecture

This chapter describes the architecture of BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic. The following topics are covered:

- How Liquid Data Fits in the WebLogic Platform
- Liquid Data Architecture
- Liquid Data Components

# How Liquid Data Fits in the WebLogic Platform

Liquid Data services can be developed as a Workshop application or as a project within another type of Workshop application, such as a portal, web application, or business process. The runtime platform for Liquid Data is WebLogic Server. Liquid Data can take full advantage of the services provided by WebLogic Server, such as scalability and clustering, and the full array of J2EE features and services. It operates seamlessly with other applications running in a WebLogic Server.

Client applications that want to use Liquid Data services only need to establish an initial context to the WebLogic Server where Liquid Data is deployed. The initial context, a JNDI mechanism for identifying a resource on a network, is similar to a database connection in that it identifies the location of a server and includes any required connection parameters, such as user names and passwords.

Once the initial context is established, the client can instantiate data services and use them to get and update information.

For complete information on BEA WebLogic Server, see the WebLogic Server documentation at the following URL:

http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E13222_01/wls/docs81/index.html

# Liquid Data Architecture

As shown in Figure 2-1, Liquid Data provides a data integration layer between data sources and data users.

The core of the Liquid Data runtime component is the data processing engine. It is a distributed query processor that divides user requests into optimized sub-queries, which when possible are processed concurrently against the data sources. The core is supplemented by security and caching components and interfaces for acquiring and delivering information, as described further in the following section.

Figure 2-1 Liquid Data Components Architecture

# Liquid Data Components

As depicted in Figure 2-1, the components and features of Liquid Data include:

- Data Processing Engine. The data processing engine is optimized for distributed data access to databases, Web services, and files.
- Cache. By caching frequently accessed data, you can improve response time and reduce load on back-end resources. For more information, see Performance and Caching.
- Security. In addition to taking advantage of security features of the underlying WebLogic server, Liquid Data lets you set read and update permissions for functions. For more information, see Securing Data.
- Client API. Application developers have several options for accessing data. The Service Data Objects API allows client applications to read and update the data through a typed or untyped interface. Query-oriented access is supported for XQuery through the ad hoc query mechanism. In addition, the Liquid Data JDBC driver enables JDBC clients, including SQL tools, access the information served by Liquid Data services.
- Data source API. Liquid Data supports many data source types, including:

- Relational sources
- Web services
- XML files
- Delimited files
- Custom Java functions

- Administration Console. The administration console allows you to control Liquid Data features such as caching and access restrictions, as well as internal server behavior such as thread usage and memory. It also gives usage statistics regarding data services.
- Design Tools. Liquid Data includes tools for creating the data services layer, including tools for modeling and developing data services and creating XQuery functions. For more information, see Unifying Information with Data Services.