Trip report courtesy of Peter Spielvogel - T.M.
Last week I stopped by to see the first CDI-MDM Summit (CDI = customer data integration; MDM = master data management). The sold-out event demonstrated a large interest in the topic. Or perhaps people were drawn to the unique Japan-town venue near downtown San Francisco.
I attended several interesting sessions in which industry leaders shared their experiences implementing CDI or MDM. In between sessions, I had the opportunity to meet many interesting people and chat with them about the implications of these two technologies and their relationship to EII (enterprise information integration).
The question I heard most frequently was: What is the relationship among CDI, MDM, and EII? I’ll answer that first, then list some show highlights.
Relationship among CDI, MDM, and EII
MDM and CDI combine data management processes and a collection of technologies to provide entity analysis, data synchronization, data quality, transactional integrity, and other uses. There are several approaches to creating a single system of record, including creating a new data warehouse (data consolidation), creating copies of data in new operational stores (data propagation), and creating virtual views of master data (data federation/EII). Users often combine several approaches, but according to The Data Warehousing Institute, “The trend in master data management is to use federated or virtual styles of data integration.” This is because EII allows more flexible integration without the expense and overhead of managing additional data stores.
EII serves two useful and unique purposes in MDM and CDI.
1. Simplifying the task of integrating customer or other data from disparate applications and data sources
2. Creating a flexible mechanism to deliver custom subsets of customer data to individual departments
Session highlights:
- Microsoft is spending $100 million over five years on their CDI initiative.
- Other companies spending less but still major focus for telecommunications, healthcare, industrial products.
- CDI and MDM extend way beyond IT and require executive sponsorship to assure the project’s success.
- The results of such projects are fairly easy to quantify, but it can take several years to complete the entire process.
Hallway conversation highlights:
- System integrators seem very interested in using EII as an enabling technology to support their CDI/MDM practices.
- The other EII vendors and I discussed the explosive growth in the market.
- Several end users wanted to debate definitions of CDI, MDM, and EII and how these areas work together to solve customer problems.
Quote of the show (heard during meeting in Ipedo’s hospitality suite):
- “I have been doing CDI for 20+ years, well before it was called CDI. This is nothing new, but now the technology exists to address this problem in new ways that were previously impossible.” Senior Manager at System Integrator.
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