Many companies are still deploying Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), with proprietary adapters and integration servers.  However, for a Master Data Management (MDM) solution, we recommend a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach for integration between the hub and source systems using web services.

A typical web server provides Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), so Web browsers can receive pages from a web site.

Application servers provide the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) interface and host the web services. The web services also provide object components, which provide the business service layer above the applications.

The development time for SOA-based MDM integration will depend on the number of business entities to be exchanged, the availability of a vendor-supplied Software Development Kit for the Web Services Definition Language (WSDL), the complexity of the applications to be integrated and the number of Web services to ultimately be deployed.

Some guidelines for developing an SOA integration for an MDM hub are:

• Use XML (eXtensible Markup Language) for all data exchange (XML is a language that provides a standard way of representing data and information).
• Use UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) for listing and locating applications. UDDI is a directory standard that is provided by some application tools as a built-in service to use during integration.
• The WSDL (Web Services Description Language) file should be obtained from the source system to which data needs to be sent or retrieved. WSDL is a "descriptor standard" that an application uses to describe its interface and interaction rules to other applications. WSDL is a document written in XML which describes a Web service. It specifies the location of the service and the operations (or methods) the service provides.
• WSDL should be leveraged with the help of proprietary tools provided for each application to generate the XML message required to meet that data structure.

Currently, some of the Master Data Management platforms (such as Siperian, Initiate Systems, Oracle and IBM) provide excellent SOA libraries of web services.

With some work by the end customer, these products can provide a standard set of data services at the application level. We believe this approach ultimately will give you more flexibility and adaptability than EAI-based integration.

In this article, we’ll give some perspective on the current state of the Master Data Management (MDM) market.

Well-meaning skeptics have raised doubts about whether MDM initiatives have long-term viability, sufficient ROI or in fact, are just another system. This skepticism is, of course, understandable.

Every major new type of enterprise technology, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) goes through an adoption cycle, with early enthusiasm leading to the “Trough of Disillusionment” and eventually, the “Plateau of Productivity”. For more information, see Gartner’s definition of Hype Cycles.

And if you look at the history of MDM solutions over the past few years, the space was very fragmented, initially populated mainly by data quality and matching vendors.

But more recently, some innovations have come together in the MDM space so that it’s starting to offer real value to mainstream companies, not just early adopters.

There have been several innovations on the IT architecture front, such as Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), plus new analytics capabilities, improved tools to facilitate data stewardship and more mature MDM hub platforms. All this adds up to a fast-changing landscape.

To add to the momentum, the top enterprise software players (like Oracle, IBM and SAP) have jumped feet first onto the MDM bandwagon, joining the best-of-breed players (like Purisma, Siperian and Initiate Systems) who helped launch the space, giving rise to a whole new ecosystem of system integrators, data service providers and an increasing trend toward global solutions beyond North America.

This growing ecosystem is driving significant growth for the MDM industry as a whole. There are exciting frontiers ahead.

For example, we’re already seeing some business process outsourcing relating to the creation and maintenance of an organization’s master data to an external provider.

At Hub Solution Designs, we’re excited to be part of the MDM wave of adoption from the very beginning. We see more growth, better solutions, and more organizations succeeding with MDM every day.

Please use the Comment button to let us know what you think about the trend towards outsourced data stewardship.

At Hub Solution Designs, our MDM partnership strategy is pretty straightforward.

We are a management & technology consulting firm focused exclusively on Master Data Management and Data Governance.  Our strategy is to partner with all of the leading MDM vendors, because there is no "one-size fits all" solution and businesses need options here.  So our strategy is to provide unbiased solutions that best meet the needs of our clients.

Partnering with all of the MDM vendors is an ambitious strategy, but as Teddy Roosevelt said, "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing".

And pragmatically speaking, as trusted advisors who bring a tested methodology and sound best practices to bear on every MDM engagement,  we think the question of which consulting firm or systems integrator you select is, if anything, more important than which MDM hub platform you select.

So here's where we stand today with the three MDM "mega-vendors" (Oracle, IBM and SAP) and the three smaller MDM vendors (Siperian, Initiate Systems and Purisma/D&B).

Oracle: We joined the Oracle Partner Network as a worldwide partner in November 2007. Several of our team members have extensive experience with Oracle's growing portfolio of MDM solutions, and have driven successful implementations of them at financial services institutions, software companies, and high tech firms. We have good relationships with Oracle's MDM product strategy team and with Oracle sales teams around the country. We're also involved in the independent Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG) and, as part of its Education Committee, helped plan the MDM track of OAUG's upcoming COLLABORATE 08 conference.

IBM: We joined IBM's PartnerWorld program in September 2007, based on knowing several people from DWL (acquired by IBM in 2005) and other parts of IBM.  We think that IBM is going to do very well with companies in their "sweet spot" (certain industries like financial services and companies that are historically heavy users of IBM hardware or software).  So we'll keep looking for opportunities to grow our client relationships, our team and our expertise in the area of IBM's MDM solutions.

SAP: another slow starter, with an MDM solution that was originally very centered around the "Product" domain. But SAP's NetWeaver MDM solution continues to evolve and develop. And SAP also has a strong "sweet spot" of companies (global manufacturers, consumer packaged goods companies and European-headquartered firms), and a large installed base of SAP applications users who are pretty loyal when it comes to considering an MDM solution from SAP. We're just about to join the SAP partner program at the Associate Partner level to start, and have just brought on a new team member with significant experience in Master Data Management and SAP.

We also continue to be impressed by the smaller MDM software vendors.  We think we're still in the early stages of MDM market development and there's still room for a "best of breed" MDM strategy at this point.

The Siperian MDM Hub is a robust product, and is able to identify and manage relationships among multiple types of enterprise data, such as customers, products or accounts, across multiple applications and lines of business. The company has done very well in the financial services and pharmaceutical & life sciences industries. Siperian had a more than 300% growth rate from 2006 to 2007, and just received a $25 million round of financing in January, to support additional expansion in Europe and further development of its channels and products. The Siperian customers we've talked to really like the product, and the Siperian people we work with are top notch. We've been an approved Siperian partner since October 2007, and are planning to attend the Siperian user group and partner summit in San Francisco in early April.

Initiate Systems filed with the SEC to go public in November 2007. The company was founded in 1995 and has more than 140 customers in production, in industries such as health care, financial services, public sector, retail and technology, with marquee customers such as Microsoft, Intuit, Capital One, Countrywide, Wells Fargo, Humana, Hyatt Hotels, Barnes & Noble, CVS, and SuperValu. We signed a partnership agreement with Initiate in December 2007, after talking with some Initiate people and customers at the Fall 2007 MDM Summit conference in New York. The company's technology has some very interesting capabilities, and we're impressed with what we've seen to date of the product, the company and its people.

Purisma (a D&B company): Prior to starting Hub Solution Designs in mid-2007, I worked for Dun & Bradstreet for three years in its Global Alliance team, managing D&B's strategic alliance with Oracle. I was part of various CDI and MDM related teams and initiatives within D&B, and was one of the few people from D&B to attend the first public CDI-MDM Summit conference in Spring 2006.  After being an internal MDM evangelist at D&B for several years, I was pleased to see the company acquire Purisma in November 2007. The acquisition was a good strategic fit for both companies, allowing D&B to become more of a player in the Customer Data Integration (CDI) and MDM marketplace, and giving Purisma the chance to extend its market reach.  We're not formal partners with D&B/Purisma yet, but we're working on it, and in the meantime, our network of informal relationships within both companies continues to grow.

After establishing and growing our relationships with all of these companies, we're listening carefully to what our clients and the market as a whole are telling us about their relative strengths & weaknesses, who has the best product for which situation in which industries, and who's growing their market share over time.  We think there will be some additional consolidation in MDM, as in every other part of the enterprise software market, and we hope to continue as thought leaders by being able to look "around the corner" at what's coming two to five years down the road.

We've got our eye on other large enterprise software players, like Microsoft, salesforce.com and Google, that are not yet really playing in the MDM space in an organized way.

Our formal & informal relationships with Oracle, IBM, SAP, Siperian, Initiate Systems and Purisma/D&B will continue to develop and grow. Our clients benefit from our solid methodology, approaches and best practices, plus the processes, procedures and data governance that we help you wrap around these MDM products, regardless of which vendor you select. Please review our service offerings for Educational Workshops, Readiness Assessment, Software Selection, and Business Case Creation to get an idea of how we help clients map out and execute a winning MDM strategy.

The vendors bring great technology and we bring great people with broad domain expertise.

Business-Centric vs. Entity-Centric MDM

Siperian is seeing a growing number of companies entering into MDM in  response to a particular business solution area and asking what entities are needed for that solution, rather than the other way around.  Let's call this a business-centric approach to MDM rather than an entity-centric approach.  The entity-centric approach addresses entities- the products data, account data, the contracts, etc. - one at a time.  It is technical in nature.  The business-centric approach addresses a specific business problem - such as processing benefits and payroll or processing sales leads - and examines all of the entities needed to support the initiative.  The business-centric approach to MDM provides a complete solution to the business problem and illustrates the value of MDM in a tangible way.

A solution-based evolutionary approach to enterprise-wide MDM

Companies viewing MDM at a strategic level are adopting a well-planned evolutionary approach.  This might consist of starting with a single MDM implementation for a particular business solution, with a single hub, multiple entities, certain architectural style (coexistence, transactional, or registry) and a mix of operational or analytical usages.  As a company develops more business solutions, each with its own hub, with multiple, potentially overlapping entities, and perhaps different architectural and usage styles these solutions need to be linked together.  For example, a company might have separate masters, with some overlapping entities, one for a certain business solution and another for a different business solution.  Siperian is seeing companies use a federated MDM approach to link these hubs together.

Local to enterprise-level Data Governance

Data governance is obviously a huge part of the development effort.  In the first hub, usually local data governance will suffice.  However, once multiple hubs are deployed, each utilizing some of the same entities, a cross-functional data governance approach is required.  This can involve local data stewards working cross-functionally with an enterprise data governance council.

Of course, the business side of the house needs to be involved with all of this.  They need to own the business solution.  They are central to the governance effort.  They need to fund the federated hub.  Once divisions in a company can get past the politics and perceived bureaucracy of MDM an enterprise-wide MDM deployment is doable, as evidenced by the growing number of companies that have actually accomplished this.