PUBLIC MARKS with tags sdo & abstraction

Service Data Objects (SDOs) have been around in the Java technology world since November 2003. They are designed as a means of simplifying and unifying working with heterogeneous data sources. In February 2005, IBM and Zend announced a strategic partnership to collaborate on the development and support of the PHP environment. One aspect of this collaboration has been the definition and implementation of SDOs for PHP. This article gives an overview of SDOs and the motivations for using them in the PHP environment. A simple contact management scenario is used to illustrate key concepts.