Mandy Chessell
Next steps in digital products …
PDR’s research in to data products, and the infrastructure needed to support them, continues.
Our original white paper , makes two points:
- the term “data product” is too restrictive, since interactive interfaces, such as chatbots, and AI apps running on mobile devices, should also be included. As such we coined the phrase digital product.
- building trust between consumers and producers of digital products, requires the producers to be clear about how the product will evolve, support multiple versions and how errors in the data are restated. These mechanisms vary by type of digital product.
Recently we have been focused on the linkage from digital products, and the assets that support them, to the business teams and functions that are involved. In particular, we have built out the definition of the information supply chain, showing the data supply and downstream consumers, and the solution blueprint, describing how the digital product is maintained and who is responsible for what.
Egeria’s latest version 5.3 includes the APIs and related resources for all of these concepts, including worked examples of them in action.
Since our original white paper, data product support has been announced by a variety of vendors, but typically focussing on the needs and perspective of the producers.
Our view continues to be that successful digital products are built by focussing on the needs of the consumers. We are building a subscription model that captures the use of a digital product and allows tailoring of elements such as the data sharing agreement to the needs of each consumer. It both clarifies to the consumer what their entitlements, restrictions and obligations are, as well as providing valuable usage insight to digital product producers.
Initial versions of this subscription model have been added to Egeria’s open metadata types for review. See Digital Subscriptions.