Business Data Catalog in MOSS 2007

Overview
As per Microsoft, Business Data Catalog (BDC) is a “new business integration feature available in Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007. It is a shared service and it enables MOSS 2007 to surface business data from back-end server applications without any coding.”
Why BDC?
All the data entered into the Sharepoint system gets stored in the content database of that particular Sharepoint application. So by default, a Sharepoint site will get information from its content database. But it is quite natural for an organization to have information stored in multiple databases by numerous applications throughout the organization. For example, inventory software stores its data in a database that is different from a CRM software storing data in a database. But people will find is extremely useful if provided with a space where they can have every bit of information from each and every department in the organization ranging from the up-to-minute logistics information to the up-to-date sales analysis. The BDC feature of Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 provides the needed business integration for integrating the line of business (LOB) applications with the Sharepoint.
What is BDC?
Business Data Catalog provides built in support for displaying data from two data sources.
· Databases
· Web Services
Microsoft promises a “no coding” approach for integrating LOB applications with Sharepoint. Business Data Catalog provides access to the data sources through a metadata model that provides a consistent and simplified client object model. So it is the metadata authors who describe the API of the business applications in xml. After this, the administrators will associate this metadata with the Sharepoint application after which the LOB data is available in the Sharepoint system.