To Master Data, You Must

Although it might sound like one of Master Yoda’s wise sayings, it is in fact one of the realities of modern IT. In fact, it’s more than a reality, it’s a significant challenge for most CIOs today. Years and years of disconnected technology investments are driving many organizations to a state where data duplication becomes a harsh fact of life. Simple questions like “where is you customer data located?” have in many cases multiple answers. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as there is a clear methodology to manage data. Unfortunately, most of the time there is no such thing in the organization. The fact that “where is your customer data located?” has multiple answers is worsened by the fact that “which application manages your customer data?” has multiple answers. To make matters even more complicated, most of the applications referred in the response will claim they own the “customer”.

MDM (Master Data Management) is emerging as a potential way to address the challenges mentioned above. Unfortunately, many organizations believe that by simply implementing a MDM solution all of these challenges will be addressed. That’s a big (and potentially costly) mistake. In most cases, along with the MDM solution itself, you also need a serious shift in the organization’s data management mindset. Failure to drive the mindset change will inevitably lead to the failure of the MDM solution implementation. Such a mindset change should result in at least the following:

• A data governance program that spans (preferably) the entire organization
• A master data model
• Changes in applications that interact with master data
• Coherent maintenance processes

Obviously, these are major changes for any organization, and they should be supported by the appropriate toolset. SQL Server 2008 R2 brings for the first time to the Microsoft Application Platform such a toolset, in the form of SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Services (MDS). Basically, MDS provides you the infrastructure to implement a master data hub for the central management of master data entities and hierarchies. This infrastructure provides services like management portal, versioning, data-centric workflows, extensible business rules, and role-based security.

For the first time on the Microsoft Application Platform we have the necessary tools to morph the vision of unified, enterprise-wide master data management into tangible reality. All we need is the ability to drive the change in mindset.

To find out more about this promising technology I encourage you to go to the SQL Server 2008 R2 Master Data Servicessite.