Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 3
Enterprise Data
Management
Jonathan B. Novak
T
HE
INFORMATION
ENVIRONMENT
TODAY
IS
CHARACTERIZED
BY
APPLICATION
systems that develop and deliver data to specific groups. The data delivery
is often achieved in a redundant and costly way because organizational and
application barriers limit information transfer. More serious to the objec-
tives of the enterprise is the limited access and often erroneous or, at best,
inconsistent views of what the data represents.
To provide high-quality, consistent data, the enterprise must treat it as
a corporate resource rather than the traditional application-specific
domain. Application-specific databases were typically created to be inde-
pendent from other applications, although often with similar elements.
This situation is prominent because of the approach that addresses data
requirements within the scope of a given application or process, with no
concern or attention to requirements outside that scope for the same, sim-
ilar, or related data.
To eliminate this tendency and to manage cross-process requirements,
data must be addressed at the enterprise level. Resulting improvements in
quality make it possible to manage by fact, because all functions and appli-
cations use a single logical image of data from the enterprise master copy
of information rather than variations generated specifically by and for indi-
vidual systems.
The core concept of this chapter is to support an architecture, method-
ology, and set of services to deliver timely, consistent, and quality data ele-
ments from a single logical source to all applications, end users, and cli-
ents. It is complementary but not limited to developing data information
warehouse architectures. The objectives of Enterprise Data Management
(EDM) include providing an enterprisewide data image developed from
optimum data sources that populate an enterprise data information ware-
house and are delivered to authorized end users and knowledge workers.
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