Master data Management

Master data Management

Master data management (MDM) is a comprehensive method of enabling an enterprise to link all of its critical data to a common point of reference. When properly done, MDM improves data quality, while streamlining data sharing across personnel and departments. In addition, MDM can facilitate computing in multiple system architectures, platforms and applications.

Architecture and benefits of MDM

Master data management is intended to bring a systematic approach to data integration that ensures consistent use and reuse of data. Customer data, particularly, is a concern, and this concern is aggravated by recent introduction of unstructured web activity data to a long list of data types found in customer profiles.

As big data architectures find greater use, the types of data in organizations grow haphazardly in structure, with the traditional hallmarks of poor data management -- data duplication, incomplete data and error-filled records -- continuing to be common. Master data managers set out to address these issues by, among other things, establishing a reliable data dictionary for use across systems and providing means to enforce standard terminology.

As systems of record and customer engagement applications expand in use, companies find they have no single clear view of a customer. Transactional systems, analytical data warehouses and, more recently, interactional data from web activity provide different views of the customer, but ultimately, business users look for a single accurate view of that customer.

Master data management is intended to provide such a view via systems that effectively consolidate data from multiple system sources. At the same time, the MDM system typically is configured to give data stewards -- that is, individuals charged with implementing MDM efforts -- a federated view of data across the organization so that standard approaches to treatment of data are maintained. MDM systems typically include large repositories for master data storage. They also include change management and data pipelines, as well as workflow and collaboration facilities.

Along with customer-centric capabilities, MDM systems also include product, supplier and partner master data, with specialized master data systems targeted at special use cases, such as procurement or healthcare. In recent years, aspects of MDM have come to be associated with metadata management, a related technology discipline that organizes descriptive "data about the data" in the organization. Also underlying some MDM implementations are data virtualization architectures that employ a data abstraction layer that enables data access without physical data movement.