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Data Federation – Master Data Patterns – The Virtual MDM Pattern

Following on from my last blog on data federation, the next data federation pattern I would like to discuss is a Master Data Virtual MDM pattern. This is as follows:

Pattern Description
This pattern uses data virtualisation to provide one or more on-demand integrated views of master data entities such as customer, product, asset, employee, etc., even though the master data is fractured across multiple underlying systems. Applications, processes, portals, reporting tools and data integration workflows needing master data can acquire it on-demand via a web service interface or via a query interface such as SQL.

Pattern Diagram

Pattern Example Use Case
A manufacturer needs to make sure that changes to its customer data are made available to its marketing, e-commerce, finance and distribution systems as well as its business intelligence systems to keep business operations, reporting and analysis running smoothly. A shipping group of companies needs to perform a routine maintenance upgrade on a particular type of asset. However, its assets are managed by different systems in multiple lines of business. In order to budget for this upgrade it needs to have a single view of assets to fully understand maintenance costs.

Reasons For Using It
To obtain a single integrated views of master data for consistency across business operations quickly at a relatively low cost.

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