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MDM and Cloud Computing

Having read David Linthicum’s blog on MDM and Cloud computing about the impact on data of applications moving off premise, I have to say that I couldn’t agree more with him. What David is pointing out is that the fracturing of data caused by the adoption of cloud computing raises the importance of MDM in keeping disparate data synchronised.

This brings back memories of Business Process Outsourcing adoption several years back and what it did to companies that had no business process integration in place before they outsourced some process activities. The result of that strategy was that it fractured processes even more in many cases and sent some of the data outside the enterprise making it more difficult to get at. As applications go off premise there is a real danger MDM could get out of reach. It requires MDM to start to get implemented to get control over data. SalesForce.com data is already coming inside the enterprise via ETL tools into DWs. Several ETL vendors support this. I just don’t think that there has been many bringing it back in to populate MDM. Siperian has some case studies of their MDM customer working with cloud applications – in particular SalesForce.com. What it does say, is that pursuing a cloud computing strategy on external cloud based virtualized servers without a data governance strategy, could very well wreak havoc on any enterprise.

With virtualization being high on the agenda of many CIOs, I would suggest that they should also keep an eye on risk management and compliance otherwise they could well cause make it harder to achieve trusted data. Without MDM, a cloud computing deployment strategy certainly puts an Enterprise Data Quality Firewall and data integration services high up the agenda priority list!

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