Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Getting started on master data management
Getting started on master data management: "When Unilever started implementing MDM technology they decided to leave their master data and the copies of that data alone and tackle the data governance issue first, Longman said.
They began by picking some employees and charging them with the responsibility of managing the values of data within operational systems. They then created a process for replicating the master data so that copies are updated when changes are made.
It's much easier to take data and push it into a data warehouse than it is to take data and push it into operational systems.
Cliff Longman
'[Unilever] had set aside an SAP system specifically for holding a copy of the master data, and assigned responsibility to people to manage the data in that system,' Longman said. 'They used SAP replication technology to manage all of the other copies that were around the organization.'
Longman said that Unilever used enterprise application integration (EAI) tools to manage changes and replication on an 'as-it-happens' basis.
'As something changes in one system, a message is sent through a message bus and it's replicated to all of the places that that data is maintained,' he explained.
Longman added that this type of approach is often more successful at smaller companies than large ones, because it tends to be very expensive.
A second possible approach to implementing MDM technology begins with data harmonization and consolidation, rather than data governance. "
They began by picking some employees and charging them with the responsibility of managing the values of data within operational systems. They then created a process for replicating the master data so that copies are updated when changes are made.
It's much easier to take data and push it into a data warehouse than it is to take data and push it into operational systems.
Cliff Longman
'[Unilever] had set aside an SAP system specifically for holding a copy of the master data, and assigned responsibility to people to manage the data in that system,' Longman said. 'They used SAP replication technology to manage all of the other copies that were around the organization.'
Longman said that Unilever used enterprise application integration (EAI) tools to manage changes and replication on an 'as-it-happens' basis.
'As something changes in one system, a message is sent through a message bus and it's replicated to all of the places that that data is maintained,' he explained.
Longman added that this type of approach is often more successful at smaller companies than large ones, because it tends to be very expensive.
A second possible approach to implementing MDM technology begins with data harmonization and consolidation, rather than data governance. "
