A system and method are provided that enable flexible publishing and consumption of data between disparate applications. In one embodiment, a system comprises a first application and an adapter interfaced with the first application. The adapter is operable to publish data of the first application for consumption by another application, wherein the adapter publishes the data of the first application according to a publishing regime not natively supported by the first application. In certain embodiments, the adapter publishes data of an application in a plurality of different formats (e.g., database format, file format, messaging format), and consuming application(s) can then selectively access any of the plurality of different formats in which the data is published. In certain embodiments, a consumption log is maintained by an adapter that provides information concerning consumption of data by one or more consuming applications.