An architecture that incorporates web services to support distributed data

The Internet and its applications make data accessible to anyone, anywhere. Outdated data can cause problems to those who use applications that query data from widely distributed resources. This paper describes iConnect, a new architecture that captures the strengths embedded in web services to support the instant availability of large scale, uncoordinated collections of distributed data sets adhering to loosely coupled service agreement. The architecture supports the design and development of data intensive software systems that utilize heterogeneous distributed data sets and their related management applications. A case study was developed to demonstrate the application of iConnect.