DataFlux, a provider of data management solutions, announced a unified environment that enables data quality, data integration and master data management (MDM) to be managed from a single interface. Called the DataFlux Data Management Platform, the system is designed to help organizations to plan, build, implement and monitor data-centric projects, and extend them across the enterprise.
"The main thing the platform is trying to accomplish is a single place where you can do data quality, data integration, and master data management," Daniel Teachey, senior director of marketing for DataFlux, tells 5 Minute Briefing. "We believe there's a market for having those three things as part of the same implementation or same type of effort. So if you're going to do MDM, there has to be elements of quality and integration in there. Integration typically requires a lot of quality built on to it, sort of like the Russian dolls where things are nested within each other."
The Data Management Platform includes several products: DataFlux Data Management Studio, DataFlux Data Management Server, DataFlux Federation Server, and DataFlux Connect. DataFlux Data Management Server, which forms the backbone of the Data Management Platform, can implement the rules created in Data Management Studio in both batch and real-time environments to facilitate data quality, data integration and MDM. Data Management Server enables organizations to build rules and workflows once and deploy them across the enterprise.
DataFlux Federation Server provides integrated views of data located in multiple repositories without the need to physically consolidate the data. DataFlux Connect product offerings provide a packaged set of components that enable integration with common business applications, such as Siebel, SAS, and SAP. With DataFlux Connect, users can embed DataFlux data quality and data integration rules directly within an existing business application, helping find and eliminate data quality and data integration problems before they affect other business processes.
Teachey sees the new platform as helping provide clarity to fledgling MDM efforts. "MDM is sort of a frighteningly complex and sort of frenzied environment," he says. "You can have companies who view MDM as another type of data warehouse, you might have people who view MDM as a very virtual, highly linked structure. MDM is almost a journey and very rarely a destination. Companies are realizing even though MDM looks like it's only a few steps away, it's actually many miles before you get there. You have to be smart about it, or it will look like the ERP failures of eight to ten years ago, where you invest a lot of money in it, but you just don't get out of what you put into it." Go here for more information.