brox IT-Solutions, a known provider for information management and data governance and empolis have submitted a project proposal for the so called eclipse EILF (enterprise information logistics framework). EILF is an open source project under the Eclipse Technology Project that will deliver the foundation for building Information Access Management (IAM) systems. Thus, EILF will allow enterprise organizations to use latest information access and management technology in their business processes.
After enterprise information systems have mainly focused on structured information residing in databases, ERP systems etc., the management of unstructured information receives more and more attention in the market. The term Information Access Management (IAM) has been coined for a more general approach which also bridges the two worlds. Attempts already have been undertaken to address specific parts of IAM in the open source community. However, a standardized architecture covering all parts of the IAM process on an enterprise level is still missing.
Mainly focusing on the server-side architecture, EILF will provide a platform enabling all relevant steps in IAM, including management of data sources, data access, pre-processing of (structured and mainly unstructured) data, linguistic analysis, indexing, search and more. The EILF project ranges from medium-sized to enterprise-level installations. For doing so, EILF will define and implement a standard architecture making intensive use of the OSGi model to support componentization and extensibility. To summarise, EILF will deliver a platform as well as dedicated components for the implementation of a next generation IAM and information logistics purposes.
The EILF project will address a set of features and components that are required for the implementation of typical information logistic platforms. Some of the most important aspects are:
- componentization
- Data Source Management
- operating and management
- authentication and authorization
- reporting
The proposal is intended to declare the intent and scope of the EILF project as well as to gather input from the Eclipse community. Having many years of project and product development experience in information logistics, search and related IAM applications, brox ITSolutions and empolis decided to join forces and are now seeking more interested parties, e.g. Eclipse members, to launch the EILF project addressing the above mentioned aspects.
A tentative plan schedules a first EILF version 0.5 in March and a 1.0 release in October this year. Improved following versions are planned in 2009.
The Eclipse Open Source Community consists of enterprises, research organizations and individuals, who conjointly aim to develop open and standardized platforms.
standardized and scalable architectureAs there is no such foundation available yet, brox and empolis will define a new standard in the market of information management. In March brox and empolis will present the first EILF release at the eclipse.con, the premier technical and user conference focusing on the power of the Eclipse platform. brox is a strategic member of the Eclipse foundation since the beginning of 2008, empolis joined Eclipse as an add in provider in autumn 2007.
