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BIAnalytix Tip Summary: The art and science of Master Data Management

Master Data Management (MDM) is the art and science of consolidation of an organization’s data under one masterful data warehouse roof. Say you have five different operational systems used by the five (5) loosely coupled divisions in your organization. Each of those five (5) Online Transactional Processing (OLTP) systems has a concept of an Agency. If you were to create a data warehouse solution that attempted to tie data from all five systems together into one cube you might be tempted to create an Agency dimension and put data from all five (5) of the systems into it.

A situation arises very quickly that may render your data warehouse fairly useless: “datamung” (our word for redundant data). Datamung crops up when source system A adds its rows to the Agency dimension and gets it all perfect for its part of the cube. Source system B comes along and adds its data that it needs for Agency, system C…. By the end of the ETL process the Agency dimension is filled with five (5) versions of possibly very similar data. Agency Blah is in the data warehouse four or five times, once as Agency Blah from system A, once as Blah Agency from system B, once with an Agency code of 100-00 from system C, and once with an agency code of 10000 from system D, etc.

The result is draconian - an inability to create meaningful analysis, which is the whole reason for having a data warehouse. When slicing and dicing by Agency in a cube, instead of seeing one Agency Blah, you see two or more due to the inconsistencies between source systems.

Master Data Management seeks to eliminate this troublesome redundancy by providing a place for you to cleanse the dimensional data. By using an MDM product or methodologies, one can quickly see what dimensional attributes are the same and what attributes should be boiled down into a single record in the cube dimension. A single record is picked and all of the pertinent fact records are lined up to tie to that single chosen dimensional attribute. MDM is not a onetime process, it requires constant and continual vigilance but the payoffs are considerable. Your payoff is clean dimensional data, which leads to accurate reporting, which leads to timely and effective decision making in your organization. Fight “datamung” by taking command of your dimensional data through the use MDM!

Microsoft’s Bulldog product, a foray into the Master Data Management space, is currently in the technology preview stage of development. Decentrix is participating in the pre-beta evaluations of this product with Microsoft for future incorporation into BIAnalytix, our Media data Warehouse and Business Intelligence solution. Look for more from Decentrix regarding Media MDM with Microsoft in the near future.

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