Home Cloud & Networking Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services

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  1. Free Chapter
    Master Data Management
About this book
Publication date:
July 2011
Publisher
Packt
Pages
360
ISBN
9781849680509

 

Chapter 1. Master Data Management

Before covering Master Data Services (MDS) itself, we will start off by covering what Master Data Management (MDM) actually is, and looking at why it can be of benefit to an organization. This includes an examination of the different approaches to MDM, as well as listing the various components that make up an MDM initiative.

This chapter is therefore the foundation of the whole book, and aims to be largely technology agnostic by explaining why MDM is needed and what is actually required in order to implement MDM.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • Master data

  • The need for Master Data Management

  • Master Data Management overview

  • Data quality

  • Operational and analytical Master Data Management

  • Different approaches to Master Data Management

  • Data governance

  • Data stewardship

  • Politics and organizational changes

 

Master data


Before we start managing anything, we need to define what master data actually is. Master data can quite simply be thought of as electronic data that represents any noun belonging or related to the business.

Examples of these nouns are:

  • Products

  • Customers/clients

  • Projects

  • Employees

  • Properties

  • Accounts

  • Suppliers

  • Vendors

  • Stores

Looking at the aforementioned list, we're clearly not mentioning sales data, or inventory data, for example. Instead, master data is the non-transactional data that gives the transactional data some context. For example, our sales system records a transactional sales amount, but this sale is given context by the Product and Customer.

A subject area of master data, such as Customer or Product, is known as an entity. If we take Product as an example, we can derive a number of characteristics about the product, which are known as attributes of the entity. When we think of any average product, such as an item of clothing, that product will typically have a color, a size, a brand, and so on.

In fact, a product may actually have more attributes than you may think. A more complete picture of what a product entity and its attributes might look like is shown next:

The entity and its attributes define a clear and robust structure for our Product master data subject area. However, a structure is nothing without data itself. The data in the case of the Product entity comes from a collection of members, which can be thought of as the physical instances of a given entity.

Each member of the entity will be different from every other member in some sort of way. This is usually achieved through the use of a code or unique identifier (such as the Product's SKU—which stands for Stock Keeping Unit—a unique identifier for items that are for sale in a retail store or other business), but it could easily be from a combination of attributes. An example of the different members for the Product entity is as follows:

SKU

Description

Category

Sub Category

Color

J10001

Men's Regular Fit Jeans

Clothes

Jeans

Blue

J10002

Men's Loose Fit Jeans

Clothes

Jeans

Blue

J10003

Men's Loose Fit Jeans

Clothes

Jeans

Black

The above concepts of entities and attributes are very similar to dimensions, attributes, and members in dimensional data warehouse design and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) systems, for readers familiar with these concepts.

 

The need for Master Data Management


Unfortunately, no business of any significant size can run on just one piece of software—businesses need different software to carry out specific tasks. There is never just one user interface and one database to deal with the different functions that need to be carried out.

Large enterprises will always have more than one of the following list of systems that will require the business master data in some way:

  • Financial / Accounting

  • Sales / e-commerce

  • Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

  • Human Resources (HR)

  • Budgeting and Forecasting

  • Admin systems

  • Data warehouses

The problems, and the need for MDM, arise because all of the above systems need some or all of the business master data. As these systems generally aren’t explicitly linked, it means that each system normally maintains its own copy of master data in order to function correctly. All the systems have their own local database, each containing tables that hold the master data entities needed by the individual application. Therefore, separate copies of an organization's master data are scattered around the enterprise.

This creates a challenge as to how the master data can be passed from system to system. For example, if the Sales Order Processing system is the place where customers get created, then how are these customers made available to the CRM system, which needs to log new sales opportunities for existing customers? Furthermore, what if the CRM system needs to create its own set of potential customers? A situation could arise whereby the CRM creates a potential customer, who, after a few months, becomes a real customer. How is this new customer now entered into the sales system when they place an order? A likely scenario is that the new customer will simply be manually entered into the Sales Order Processing system, with different information than what was entered in the CRM system.

Situations like the one above can cause serious problems within an organization. We may now have a customer called 'Contoso' in our Sales Order Processing system, but our CRM system holds the very same customer as "Contoso Systems".

All this makes it very difficult to obtain a single version of the truth for customer data, meaning in this case that the analysis of the combined sale and cost of sale for reporting purposes will be difficult to obtain.

The overriding problem is that master data changes slowly over time. Inserts, updates and deletes should be applied across all systems at the same time, but due to the way that the individual systems were implemented this is not easily achieved, or in some cases it may actually not be possible. The result is that master data existing across disparate systems in the organization can very quickly become out of sync if not managed correctly. Further examples of how this can happen are as follows:

Manual updates

Sometimes master data can be initially fed from the original system of record to another system, but then no effort is made to keep the two systems automatically synchronized. This approach is typically used when the data that needs to be taken from the system of record is not volatile. An example of this is replicating Cost Centers from the Accounting system to the Budgeting and Planning system. The creation of a new Cost Center may be such an infrequent event that it's acceptable for the Planning administrator to manually re-create the cost center in the Budgeting and Planning system. Accountants and Planners tend to know the Cost Center codes well, meaning it's quite easy for them to make the change. The problem arises of course when other more subtle attributes of the Cost Center, such as perhaps the Cost Center category, get updated in the Accounting system; then the updates wouldn't be passed to the Budgeting and Planning system, which could cause problems.

Different descriptions for the same attributes

It's quite possible that different systems may need the same attributes of a given entity, but that there is no standardization of the possible attribute values across the different systems. For example, the sales system for a clothing company will have some sort of Product entity, which could have an attribute of Product Category. The sales system may hold the Product Categories of 'Jeans', 'Chinos', 'Sweatshirts', 'Belts', and so on. However, when the marketing system was implemented, the categories were slightly different, being entered as 'Casual Pants' instead of 'Jeans' and just 'Sweaters' for 'Sweatshirts'. When sales figures and marketing costs by Product Category are needed on the same report, there will be no alignment between the Categories of the products.

Mergers and acquisitions

If an organization has grown by mergers or acquisitions then there's a good chance that the once separate companies that now form a group all sell to the same customers. This means it's possible that one of the companies holds a customer called "Contoso USA" and that another company holds a customer called "Contoso North America", which in fact in the fictitious example happens to be exactly the same customer. They've both historically sold to the customer, but have just internally given the customer a different name and have probably assigned different attributes. The end result is that any group level reporting on customer data will not be accurate due to the duplicates that exist.

 

Master Data Management overview


So what is Master Data Management and how can it help with the problems that we've now seen?

Note

Master Data Management is a set of tools and processes that aim to deliver a single clean and consistent view of each master data entity that exists within the organization.

In other words, we want each system across the organization to use exactly the same set of master data, in terms of entities, attributes, and members, as long as of course the system actually needs them.

As you might expect, this is easier said than done. Each system will have its own local database, possibly different meanings for different entities or attributes, and its own set of users who are highly accustomed to seeing their data in a certain way.

In order to achieve the above, there is a high-level plan that can be followed for implementing an MDM program:

  • Getting executive sponsorship—You need to do this with any large IT project, but it's especially necessary with MDM. Someone will need to sell the benefits of MDM to the various group company heads or department heads who may prove to be an initial barrier to implementing MDM.

  • Defining the scope—Your MDM project needs to have a clearly defined scope so that you know how many systems currently use a given entity, what involvement you will have with these systems, and therefore defining the overall objectives of your MDM program.

  • Designing a solution—No IT project should ever just launch into the development stage, and the same applies for MDM. It is necessary to thoroughly analyze each source system, using data profiling amongst other techniques, in order to understand the behavior of each entity and attribute that is used.

  • Develop a model—A standardized model must be created per entity that is capable of housing the entity in the best possible way. This includes choosing the correct names and data types for attributes, all of which is driven by the analysis of the various data sources.

  • Extract data—Master data from the various legitimate sources must be extracted and loaded into the model. Whether or not this process also occurs on a continuous basis depends on the chosen MDM architecture, which is covered later in this chapter.

  • Publish data—Once the model has been populated, a method must be devised to allow systems to use data from the newly defined master data model. As with extracting data, how this actually happens depends on the architectural choices.

By going through these steps, each system that falls under the scope of the new MDM program will require some changes in one way or another. These changes may be at the data level, or they may even require architectural/code changes to the system. Given the potential scale of getting each system on board, a sensible approach is to tackle each system in turn, on a piecemeal basis, instead of attempting a big bang approach.

 

Data quality


If effort is going to be made to distribute a single copy of master data across the organization, then it stands to reason that the data should be of high quality.

It is the responsibility of the MDM solution to ensure data quality - it cannot simply be left to chance that data coming from multiple data sources, or even a single source, will be immediately fit for consumption. Instead, it is likely that one or more of the following problems will need to be corrected:

  • Lack of consistency—The existence of different attribute values across two or more members when the true attribute values are semantically the same. For example, the CRM could hold the Customer Genders as "Male" and "Female", whereas the ERP could hold the Genders as "M" and "F".

  • Incomplete data—NULL or blank data for a given entity attribute. For example, the Sales Order Processing system could hold the Customer's First Date of purchase. In some systems, this would be calculated and could therefore be relied upon without problems. However, if it's a manually entered field, then having it as NULL or blank would mean any systems that want to use that field for analytical purposes would not be able to do so.

  • Format issues—Data that is entered and stored in an incorrect format. For example, customer names being entered in upper case, rather than title case.

  • Out of range—Numerical attribute values that are outside the bounds of what the business deems acceptable. For example, a stationary manufacturer may sell pens between the range of $5 – $20. Therefore, if a product price of $500 is encountered for a pen, then it is definitely incorrect.

  • Complex data issues—A situation that can occur whereby an attribute value is correct by itself, but incorrect in the context of the member's other attribute values. For example, a Product Recommend Retail Price may well be correct at $1, but not if the Cost of Manufacture is $5.

  • Data duplication—The existence of duplicate members for a given entity. As we've seen in one of the previous examples, this can arise due to different systems holding the same information, resulting in us getting two customers with slightly different names that are in fact exactly the same customer.

Data cleansing should be applied to the data before it enters the MDM database, according to a set of pre-defined business rules that check for the specific problems that can occur with the data. The results of any data cleaning should be logged so that reports can be created in order to meet compliance or auditing requirements.

Prior to the development of the data cleansing routines, a detailed data analysis, known as data profiling, should be carried out on the source data to anticipate where the problems may lie. This should be combined with discussions with users and source system experts to understand any additional data quality issues not uncovered by the data profiling.

All the major vendors, such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle, produce ETL (Extract Transform Load) tools that contain functionality to assist with data cleaning and data profiling. In addition, there are some more specific tools on the market that are able to assist with the sometimes complex area of de-duplication, especially for areas such as Customer names and addresses.

 

Operational and analytical Master Data Management


If we think of the places across the organization that need master data, there will be two broad categories that spring to mind, namely:

  • Analytical systems, for example, Data Marts and Data Warehouses

  • Operational systems; for example, Sales Order Processing, Finance, ERP, and CRM to name a few

The tasks involved in delivering master data are fairly different for analytical systems versus operational systems. Due to the differences, there are two separate categories or uses for MDM, which are known as Analytical MDM and Operational MDM.

Analytical MDM

Analytical MDM is the focus of delivering clean, conformed and consistent master data to data warehouses, cubes, and other business intelligence applications. The process is to extract data from the various operational source systems, and integrate that data into the MDM master entities that have been defined. As with any robust form of data integration, rules are applied to only allow valid data to enter the MDM environment.

Once in the MDM environment, users may interact with the master data via a suitable front-end. One of the key analytical maintenance tasks that users may be required to do is to supply additional entity attribute values for reporting purposes. It's quite likely that if, for example, Customer data has been sourced from the ERP system, then the master data entity that gets populated will contain Customer attributes such as names, address and telephone numbers. But what about a customer attribute such as 'Industry Classification'? In our example, senior management wish to see a report of customer sales that must include Customer Industry Classification, but as it happens there is no such customer attribute in the ERP.

Forgetting MDM for the moment, and depending on how mature the organization's Business Intelligence actually is, Excel may currently be involved to solve the above problem. It's not unheard of for someone to take a data feed from somewhere, and then manually adjust in Excel before delivering some sort of manual excel dashboard to the executive in question.

Another solution to this problem could be to create a new attribute in the ERP. This may be a good choice, but it could take time to implement and could be technically difficult, depending on which ERP product the organization has implemented.

MDM tools can offer a quicker and more robust solution, as they're highly specialized to deal with this kind of situation. As each new customer is detected by the MDM tool, a user can be alerted, and then prompted to fill in the Industry Classification for the new Customer. As you would expect, it's also possible to alter the new attribute value for existing Customers as well.

Due to the huge data volumes involved in some data warehouses and BI tools, the delivery of master data to these systems tends to happen in batch, for example, over-night.

Operational MDM

Operational MDM is a little more complex than Analytical MDM. With Analytical MDM, the data travels one way, from the source, via MDM in the middle, into the data warehouse. Operational MDM is altogether different, as the members of the master data entities that are controlled and improved by the MDM process actually become the members that get used directly by the source systems.

By addressing the overall data quality in the operational systems via a central program, the issues outlined earlier in this chapter can be addressed. For example, a situation could occur whereby users of a marketing system need to send out a promotion to a group of existing customers. They take a feed of customer contacts from the Sales system, which to them seems sensible enough. However, the salespeople who frequently call a range of existing customer contacts have discovered that a few contacts have recently left. This means that the marketing users will be sending promotions to out-of-date contacts and is a waste.

With operational MDM in place, updates to a central repository of customers would ensure that the Marketing users in the example above can send their promotional advertising to a list of customers that will be more likely to respond.

Often, in order to prevent the kind of problems that can occur at the operational level, data needs to be made available to the operational systems in near real time. This is in stark contrast to the kind of latency that is often acceptable in a data warehouse. There are several architectural design patterns that can help address this situation, as we will see in the next section of this chapter.

A final point is that there is some debate on Operational versus Analytical MDM in the industry. This centers around the point that if an entity is to be managed by MDM, then all systems, whether they are analytical or operational, should be using the very same master data.

One thing is certain: the tasks involved getting the operational and analytical systems to participate in the MDM program are different. Operational MDM may need to operate in real time, in order to detect source system changes, deal with them, and then synchronize them back to get users using the correct data as soon as possible. The normally over-night batch loading of a data warehouse is easier to undertake, as no-one will be using the system, and the integration will likely happen into a set of de-normalized tables, which are easier to understand for a developer when compared to the entire normalized structure of an off-the-shelf ERP database, for example.

 

Different approaches to Master Data Management


As could be said for a lot of IT solutions, there are several different architectural approaches to choose from when implementing MDM: three to be exact, each with their own advantages and disadvantages.

The three approaches to choose from are:

  • Transaction Hub

  • Registry

  • Hybrid

Each approach is explained in turn next.

Transaction Hub

The Transaction Hub approach is the simplest of the three approaches to explain, but it's probably fair to say that it's probably the hardest to be able to implement.

The idea behind the Transaction Hub approach is to have a single repository of master data that all applications can connect to directly in order to retrieve the master data that's needed. A diagram of this approach is shown below:

Allowing each application to directly retrieve from a single database involves altering all applications to make their database connections to the central database. For example, the CRM application may be set up to take customer data (such as Full Name, Street Name, State, and other attributes) from a SQL table called 'Cust' in a database called 'CRM'. Implementing a Transaction Hub approach to MDM would mean that the application would have to take customer data in a potentially different structure (perhaps First Name and Surname instead of Full Name) from a table called 'Customer' in a Transaction Hub MDM repository database called 'MDM', for example.

Prior to the existence of the MDM program, the business applications would have been able to insert, update, and delete records as much as they wanted. This is still allowed with the Transaction Hub approach, with the original application user interface facilitating the change, but the data part of the change being sent to the central database. A locking strategy is often employed to ensure that users cannot update the same record at the same time.

The advantages and disadvantages of the Transaction Hub approach are immediately obvious. By forcing all systems to retrieve data from a single database, the problem of having duplicate entries across different databases is eradicated.

The problem with the Transaction Hub approach is that it is probably not going to be possible for most organizations to be able to alter the data tier level of their operational applications. Altering the database connection string is one thing, but having to alter the whole data tier of an off-the-shelf application is very difficult to achieve.

For these reasons, the Transaction Hub approach is seen more as an idealistic approach to MDM, whereas other methods are more realistic to achieve.

Registry

The Registry approach involves the creation of a single database that maintains a mapping system in order to return a single, unique view of a given master data entity. This can be used for reporting, or for any operational reasons that need to obtain a view of a master data entity, such as a mail shot to all customers. The solution typically includes some sort of front-end application that connects to the registry application in order to maintain the mapping.

For each entity that is managed by the Registry, the database holds the following information:

  • Member key/unique identifier

  • One or more corresponding source system keys

  • Optional metadata and business rules for survivorship

No additional attributes of the entities (for example, Name, Address in the case of a Customer) are held in the Registry system. Instead, these attributes are actually retrieved from the source systems directly, based on looking up the source system key value that is now held in the Registry. An example of how this would work for managing Customer master data derived from two Customer source systems is shown below:

When a given master data entity must be queried or extracted by a downstream system, a distributed query must be executed, which is initiated from the MDM database, as shown. This query must join each system together by using the unique member key that is maintained in the registry mapping.

Given that the non-key attributes of the entities reside in the original different line of business systems, the registry approach typically delivers a read-only master data solution. As it only maintains a mapping, there is no interface or mechanism for allowing a user to update a given attribute (such as a Product Category, for example), before distributing that update back to the source systems.

The fact that updates are not allowed simplifies the implementation of a Registry system, although the approach is not without complication. If we have two legitimate sources that update Customer data (such as the Sales Order Processing System and the CRM), then there is a possibility that we will encounter duplicates. A set of business rules should be set up to deal with this eventuality, by picking a single surviving record when a duplicate has been found. The survivorship process of removing the duplicates happens in the distributed query, which returns the single merged record, but there is no process of pushing the corrected changes back to the source systems.

The advantage to the registry approach is that it's possible to extract a real time view of a given master data entity without interfering with the various source systems. It's also relatively easy to set up, given that there are a variety of relational databases that are capable of issuing distributed queries.

The main problem with the registry approach is that the large, cross-database queries that are required in order to combine the data are often slow to execute, especially if the data sets are large.

In addition, any time a new system is created or purchased, the distributed queries will have to re-written to incorporate the new source.

Hybrid

The Hybrid is a blend of the other two architectural styles, including a separate database as per the Registry style, but also including all, or most, of an entity's attributes as seen with the Transaction Hub approach.

The aforementioned database is the core of the Hybrid solution, and contains the following data per entity that is to be managed:

  • Member Key/Unique Identifier

  • The full set of entity attributes that must be shared across different applications

  • Metadata and business rules for survivorship and data cleaning

The key concept behind the Hybrid model is that the line of business applications continue to connect directly to their original data stores, as they did before the MDM program existed. In some cases, the original applications update the local data stores directly; carrying out inserts updates and deletes for master data entities.

The role of the Hybrid MDM database is to connect to the individual application databases and to detect changes in the sources for the master data entities that are being managed. The changes that get detected are physically propagated to the MDM database, which maintains a separate, clean and conformed copy of the data.

Once data has been picked up from the application database, a number of operations may be applied to the data:

  • Data quality checks and business rules will be run on the data to correct any problems that can be automatically fixed

  • De-duplication and survivorship may occur so that an entity such as Customer gets conformed from multiple data sources

  • Nominated users may enrich the data to add additional attribute values that are not present in the original data source

At a high level, the above will ensure that the new MDM database now contains a clean set of members that meet the data quality and structure rules as defined by the business.

Now comes the task of distributing the data out to any system that needs it, which from an operational system perspective can be somewhat of a challenge. We know that with the Hybrid approach, all applications continue to connect to their own data sources. The complication arises if the source applications are continuing to insert and update data. It may be possible to prevent, or lock, users out of updating entities directly in the source applications, but this will not always be the case. Therefore, when data gets sent back to the source applications, updates to the source application master data must be made, with the understanding that update conflicts could occur.

An overview of the Hybrid approach is shown below:

New applications that get implemented can either source master data from the MDM database, usually via web services, or simply fit into the same synchronization approach that is indicated above. The choice of whether to connect a new application directly will largely depend on whether it is developed in-house or purchased.

The Analytical MDM scenario that was presented earlier in the chapter of adding an extra Customer attribute, namely Industry Classification is dealt with elegantly by the Hybrid approach. Attributes that are needed by the source systems are sent back to the source systems, whereas in this case the Industry Classification would only be sent to the data warehouse.

Incidentally, the Transaction Hub approach also deals with the "extra attribute problem", but is likely to be less appealing to most organizations when compared to the Hybrid approach. The Hybrid approach has its challenges, but they are around pushing data into source applications, rather than re-architecting those applications.

 

Data governance


As we've seen, an MDM solution can incorporate some sophisticated automated functions to assist in delivering master data to the business. However, technology alone cannot ensure the success of an MDM program. Processes must be followed in order to ensure that the MDM solution doesn't fall into the same trap that required its creation in the first place. Data Governance is the method for ensuring this—a framework that defines how master data can be used within the organization.

The idea behind using data governance for MDM is to ensure that the use of master data follows specific rules, policies, and procedures that tie in with the organization's overall strategic objectives. The rules that are set in place typically cover the following areas of the MDM program:

  • Data ownership—Defines who has overall responsibility for a given master data entity.

  • Change management—Defines the approval process for changes to the use of master data, or changes to the MDM technology solution itself.

  • Data access—Who can access the master data? This will include procedures for adding new users to the MDM solution.

  • Data modification—A set of rules that govern how inserts, updates and deletes can happen for master data. This may also dictate what is to happen in the event of an update conflict.

  • Data quality standards—Defines and monitors the overall data quality standards for the MDM program.

  • Disaster recovery—A set of procedures for defining how the master data repository is made available in the event of a disaster. As the MDM program gains traction in the organization, this is a key area to address, as the MDM solution itself becomes a key operational system.

  • Data privacy and retention—States how confidential and sensitive data is managed and how long data is retained.

The physical deliverable for data governance in MDM is a set of documents that clearly define the above rules and standards. These documents should be made available to the relevant people in the organization, according to the organization's standard document management policy, for example, SharePoint.

MDM policies and procedures are set up and enforced by a group within the organization known as the Data Governance Board. The Data Governance Board is working group within the organization that will meet on a regular basis to make decisions according to the policy. For example, the organization may be developing a new in-house Marketing system that will assist with campaign management. The stakeholders of this system wish to take a feed of Customer data from the MDM database, which must be approved via the Data Governance program.

 

Data stewardship


The Data Governance Board appoints one or more Data Stewards to implement the Data Governance policies. Each master data entity must have a data steward appointed, who is a subject domain expert responsible for maintaining the entity on a continuous basis.

The data stewards typically perform the following functions:

  • Respond to any alerts (for example, an automated e-mail) generated by the MDM system

  • Take corrective action on master data entities in order to over-ride the "best guess" made by the automated processes

  • Monitor and recognize data quality issues with a given entity

  • Continually improve an entity's data quality by suggesting enhancements to the data quality process

The data steward is typically a business user who possesses enough knowledge of the source data to make the important business decisions that ultimately result in the whole business consuming a given entity in one way as opposed to another. We can go back to earlier in the chapter to see a good example of this, where we had a Customer entity, sourced from the ERP, but the 'Industry Classification' attribute did not exist in the ERP, meaning it had to be added in the master data model. It would be the responsibility of a data steward to interpret the other Customer attributes, and then pick an appropriate Industry Classification. Although picking an Industry Classification is a simple task, the effect of getting it wrong could, for example, mean that any BI reports by Industry Classification would be incorrect.

Due to the important nature of ensuring high quality master data, the data stewardship process often involves workflow. In this situation, the data steward continues to maintain the master data entity, but certain actions may be pushed to another user to approve or reject the decision taken by the data steward.

Even though data stewards are typically business users, they will often have expert knowledge of the source data, as well as how to interpret it in a business context. This is often the case in businesses or departments where the production of reports is not from a central data warehouse, but through an expert user using Excel to arrange and clean the data. Given the data stewards, high level of knowledge, they should be involved in the requirements and design of any data capture processes in an MDM program right from the start.

 

Politics and organizational changes


Earlier in the chapter, we gave a one sentence definition of Master Data Management, which included the phrase 'tools and processes'.

The 'processes' part of MDM is a very key point. While this book is obviously about a technology product—you will not get far with implementing an MDM program by just focusing on MDS as a product. The same could probably be said to an extent for implementing any product, but it's particularly important when implementing Master Data Management.

The reason that the processes part of an MDM program are so important is due to the sheer number of systems and people that are used to interacting with the master data entities in the way that is relevant to their own need and use.

As we saw in the overall plan for an MDM program, one of the tasks is to produce a standardized entity model which will be initially fed from a number of different source systems. When this is carried out, the entities and the attributes will be conformed and standardized to mean the same thing. This could be for the actual names of entities and attributes, or for the actual attribute values. For example, the Customer entity may have an attribute of 'Industry' in one system, and this may be renamed in the new master data model as 'Market Segment'. Users who have been used to seeing an attribute called 'Industry' in their applications may not be happy with the renaming of the attribute. In a similar vein, the actual values of the attributes will be standardized, so users of the same application could see the segment of 'IT and Communications' change to a segment of 'IT', with a new segment added called 'Communications'.

As these issues have the potential to cause unrest in the organization, strong sponsorship at the executive level is needed to sell the benefits that an MDM program can bring.

 

Summary


In this chapter, we've learned the following key points:

  • Master data can quite simply be thought of as electronic data that represents any noun belonging to or interfacing with the business

  • Master Data Management is a set of tools and processes that aim to deliver a single clean and consistent view of each master data entity that exists within the organization

  • There are two difference uses for MDM in an organization—namely Analytical MDM and Operational MDM

  • There are three different architectural approaches to MDM, namely the Transaction Hub, Registry, and Hybrid approaches

  • Data governance is set up to provide control over the valuable master data asset, by defining a number of policies and procedures

  • Data stewards are subject domain experts who maintain the master data according to the practices set out by data governance

  • An MDM project needs strong leadership to ensure that the whole organization buys into the MDM program

In the next chapter, we will introduce SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services itself, and take a high level look at the features it has to aid with an MDM initiative.

 

References


Loshin, D (2009). MDM Paradigms and Architectures. Master Data Management (pp 166-171). Burlington, MA, USA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services
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