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The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) has launched a new initiative that will standardize OData, a REST-based protocol that simplifies the querying and sharing of data across applications for reuse in the enterprise, cloud and mobile devices.
OData, largely developed at Microsoft, enables information to be accessed from a variety of sources, including relational databases, file systems, content management systems and traditional Websites. Addressing the demands of cloud computing, OData helps create a more open and programmable Web by providing a common approach to exposing and consuming data.
Microsoft, IBM and others proposed the launch of an OData technical committee at OASIS in May. And more than 57 members from around the world are now participating in the OASIS OData Technical Committee. Work has already begun. The group recently convened its first meeting where members agreed on a work agenda, elected co-chairs and welcomed new supporters of the initiative.
“OData has become an important open protocol for several products across Microsoft to accomplish the goal of open data for the open Web,” Gianugo Rabellino, senior director of Microsoft Open Technologies, said in a statement. “It’s encouraging to see numerous implementations across the industry, and this productive standards collaboration at OASIS.”
“The timing was right to transition OData to a recognized, open-standards process, and OASIS was a natural choice,” said Barbara Hartel of SAP AG, co-chair of the OASIS OData Technical Committee, in a statement. “Our focus with OASIS is to build on version 3 of the core OData protocol. We intend to address requirements for extensions related to data aggregation, temporal data, JSON [Java Script Object Notation] documents and XML documents as streams.”
The OASIS Technical Committee’s formation is an important next step in the advancement of OData as an open and interoperable protocol, Ram Jeyaraman of Microsoft Open Technologies and co-chair of the OASIS OData Technical Committee, said in a statement. “We expect the work done by the OData Technical Committee to open up new possibilities in providing open data for the open Web,” he said in the statement.
OData began as an open project on the public OData site three years ago. OData producers, consumers and libraries-many of them open source-include Java, PHP, Drupal, Joomla, Node.js, .NET, SQL Server, MySQL, iOS, Windows Phone 7 and Android.
Microsoft has contributed seven OData specification components, and IBM, Microsoft and SAP have contributed four OData extension proposals to the OASIS OData Technical Committee.
“Five pillars of a modern IT shop are open source, open standards, open clouds, open data and open APIs,” said Todd Moore, director of infrastructure standards and partnerships for IBM Software Group. “IBM congratulates the OASIS community on its progress and efforts. Maturing the OData API as an open standard helps ensure it is an enterprise developer asset for software interoperability.”
“We’re seeing a wave of cloud standardization projects at OASIS that use REST, AtomPub and JSON technology,” said Laurent Liscia, OASIS executive director, in a statement. “OData is an exciting addition to our portfolio. The response to the new committee has been tremendous.”
The OData Technical Committee is open to all interested parties, and new members are encouraged to join. Archives of the work are accessible to both members and nonmembers, and OASIS invites public review and comment on the work.
“By tackling the problem of common data access, OASIS is taking a significant step in standardizing the way information is shared between applications and solutions,” said Don Kleinschnitz, chief development officer at CA Technologies. “OData shows great potential in unlocking enterprise and cloud data across vendors and platforms, allowing our customers to more fully understand their business.”