Customer Reviews

Enterprise Master Data Management: An SOA Approach to Managing Core Information

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a book which belongs on every desk of Enterprise Information IT-Architects, CIOs and business decision makers interested in optimizing their current business processes using Master Data Management! It provides a complete MDM Reference Architecture including component interaction diagrams, MDM architecture patterns and MDM Solution Blueprints for various industries. Furthermore, it explains why MDM is a key SOA enabler and why security and privacy are of paramount importance for MDM deployments. Finally, in a dedicated chapter on Data Governance, a critical success factor for implementing MDM is explained. Another amazing aspect is that this book focuses on architectural principals and is absolutely software product agnostic. Therefore, the key principles explained for designing MDM solutions the right way without a product feature/function discussion make this book very useful for a long period of time. It was a lot of fun to read and I drew a lot of useful insights from it. In my opinion an absolute must read for MDM practitioners!

These guys have put together a great overview of MDM from both the technical and operational perspective. The chapter on the MDM reference architecture details the core concepts that make MDM appealing. At the same time, the discussion in the book are often centered on operational patterns that are common across different industries (e.g., security) as well as examples/cases that are industry-specific.

If your business management is funding an MDM program, this is a good read for those on the design and implementation team, and an excellent companion to my own book, "Master Data Management."

Advanced computer libraries will find ENTERPRISE MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT is the only complete technical primer for MDM planners and implementers and companies moving toward flexible SOA will find it invaluable. It provides MDM technical knowledge for designers, senior IT decision-makers and others, and is written by the IBM data management innovators who are pioneering MDM. From discussions of how MDM and SOA compliment each other to assessing risks, values, and exploring MDM patterns, chapters cover a range of technical data and best practice solutions and are invaluable to any IT collection.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I am a long-time SAP technical consultant (admittedly with IBM, as are the authors of this book), but with little experience or knowledge of MDM. This is one of the best organized and most cohesively presented technical works I have read in some time (though the reader needn't be technical to get a great deal from the book). After having read it, I can't conceive of architecting an MDM solution without this book at my finger tips. And, as pointed out by other reviewers, the book is truly product agnostic.

The best text on enterprise master data management (MDM) in the marketplace today. Other reviewers have commented that this work is "the Bible" of MDM, and this reviewer agrees with this assessment at a deeper level than acknowledging its near-600 pages of content. In addition to providing an introduction to MDM, the authors walk the reader through architecting solutions and provide industry examples at a level of detail not found anywhere else. As a consultant, one aspect of this book that this reviewer especially appreciated is its true vendor neutrality. It is not until Appendix B that the authors mention commercial products in this space, and although this appendix might help readers understand what might be purchased as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, it is quickly apparent that there has been a lot of movement over the last two years.

Admittedly, after reading this book for the first time, this reviewer understands why the authors recommend first reading chapter 1 ("Introducing Master Data Management") followed by chapter 3 ("MDM Reference Architecture") and chapter 9 ("MDM and Data Governance") in order to understand MDM, data governance, and how to implement MDM, but these chapters also contain long stretches of content sans diagrams that are often slowly drawn out, so reading chapters in order is recommended unless the reader is already knowledgeable about MDM and is looking for industry-specific examples, in which case chapter 6 ("PIM-MDM Solution Blueprints") and chapter 7 ("CDI-MDM Solution Blueprints") should be read, or the reader is looking to integrate MDM with other systems, in which case chapter 8 ("MDM Integration Blueprints") should be read, although chapter 8 has difficulty standing on its own and the reading of chapters 6 and 7 heavily relies on chapter 5 ("MDM Architecture Patterns").

The authors present well MDM and service-oriented architecture (SOA) theory and how MDM enables SOA, and this reviewer especially appreciated their presentation on patterns and industry examples. MDM architecture patterns are broken down into (1) "MDM Hub Patterns", (2) "Information Focused Application Integration", (3) "Process Focused Application Integration", and (4) "Enterprise Systems Deployment", which are further broken down into the following, respectively: (1) "Transaction Hub", "Coexistence Hub", and "Registry Hub", (2) "Initial Load" and "Information Synchronization", (3) "Transaction Interception", "Messaging", and "ESB", and (4) "MDM-DW Integration", "MDM-BI Analytical System Integration", "MDM-ERP Integration", and "MDM-CRM Integration".

The authors follow up their presentation on patterns by providing solution insight to New Product Introduction (NPI) for the consumer electronics industry, Global Data Synchronization (GDS) for the retail industry, and PIM-RFID for tracking and tracing product, as well as solutions to Master Patient Index (MPI) for the healthcare industry, Cross- and Up-Sell and Fraud and Theft for the banking and insurance industry, and Self-Service Website for the telecommunications industry. Along the way, the authors discuss business context, relevant business patterns, relationships between business patterns and architecture patterns, and provide dozens of diagrams that tie-in directly to the discussion, walking the reader through architecture components and the interactions between these components. Expect to spend some time reading through these examples. Well recommended text on MDM for a wide spectrum of reader needs from the high-level to the deep-dive, but be aware that data models, a critical aspect of MDM, are unfortunately not discussed.

This book has everthing you need to know about implementing MDM software, including architecture and architectural styles in depth, data governance, security & privacy, domains and how it enables services oriented architecture (SOA). It should be on every MDM manager and consultant's desk.

Best reference I have found on MDM. Authoratative and complete, but will become outdated quickly.

This book covers all aspects of MDM needed to know in depth the topic.
Excellent book.

Insights abound throughout this excellent and important book. For those seriously considering the efficacy of a comprehensive Master Data Management program in a modern enterprise, I would recommend this work. The authors do an excellent job of describing where Master Data Management fits in within a Services Oriented Architecture. And they also provide excellent technical guidance relative to integration and implementation. A minor, though necessary, criticism is that the book has a decided "IBM flavor" to it. This should be no surprise, as the book is published by IBM Press; and all of the authors are IBM employees. Nonetheless, the book is well written, well organized, comprehensive, excellent, and important. It is, in short, well worth the time, money, and effort; and the book does belong on the bookshelf of those truly committed to excellence in Enterprise Master Data Architecture.

(disclosure: I was one of the review team and assisted with the chapter on MDM).

Overdue and much needed given that the IBM master data management (MDM) product family discussed will be one of the most widely-installed software products of its kind, if not *the* most-widely installed.

This book addresses also many of the common questions and concerns I hear from my client's "Enterprise Architects" and "Data Architects" who are increasingly charged as the technical gateways to vet the consideration of MDM capabilities.

No other book brings together the components necessary to successfully understand the scope of the IBM MDM offerings.

My main concern was the omission of the vital topic of "master data governance" and how IBM and partners bridge from people/processes to technology/processes. That has since been rectified by Sunil Soares' book on this topic.

While this book could also benefit from some modest coverage of the ROI and justification process, there are many other books that cover those topics in detail, i.e., Berson & Dubov's series.

In particular, I found this book has the elusive "Substance" that many of the pedantic authors lack. This is not surprising given the pedigree of authors.

In short, this should be required reading for all serious MDM practitioners in Global 5000 size enterprises.

Aaron Zornes
Chief Research Officer, The MDM Institute
Conference Chairman, The MDM & Data Governance Summit (London, Madrid, New York City, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto)