| Recent developments in information systems technologies have resulted in computerizing many applications in various business areas. Data have become a critical resource in many organizations; therefore, efficient access to data, sharing data, extracting information from data, and making use of information has become an urgent need. As a result, there have been many efforts not only on integrating the various data sources scattered across several sites but also on extracting information from these databases in the form of patterns and trends. These data sources may be databases managed by database management systems, or they could be data warehoused in a repository from multiple data sources.
The advent of the World Wide Web (WWW) in the mid-1990s has resulted in an even greater demand for managing data, information, and knowledge effectively. There is now so much data on the Web that managing it with conventional tools is becoming almost impossible. New tools and techniques are needed to effectively manage these data. Therefore, to provide interoperability as well as warehousing between the multiple data sources and systems, and to extract information from the databases and warehouses on the Web, various tools are being developed.
As the demand for data and information management increases, there is also a critical need for maintaining the security of the data sources, applications, and information systems. Data and information have to be protected from unauthorized access as well as from malicious corruption. With the advent of the Web, it is even more important to protect the data and information as numerous individuals now have access to these data and information. Therefore, we need effective mechanisms for securing access to data and applications. |
