Note – This is a post authored by Rob Rowe, Sr. Manager, MDM Product Marketing, Software AG. I just helped in co-authoring the part about taming big data since I have already written on the topic before.
We’ve all heard about big data and there are numerous definitions of it. Suffice to say, it’s a lot of data from both inside the organization (e.g. ERP, CRM, application logs, etc) and outside the organization (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, videos, news feeds, mobile apps, smart meters or other devices, etc). Whatever big data means to you, the real challenge is harnessing all this data and making sense out of it to provide real business value.
Enterprises today focus on application integration as data grows at an explosive rate everywhere. In order to tame such big data growth, traditional integration techniques may need to be complemented with newer design patterns such as in-memory data management platforms. An earlier blog post on this details this approach using three use cases.
With the explosion of data everywhere, Master Data Management (MDM) also becomes a critical point of observation. However, MDM works hand-in-hand with Big Data and is enabled by integration. There are two sides of this which we will explain. The first is using master data to provide “grounding” for the data, such as positively identifying the source of a social media stream. So for example, someone writes on Facebook that they are unsatisfied with a certain product. As it happens, it is YOUR product! But, identifying this requires a Master Product repository. You also want to know who this person is so that you can investigate and rectify the situation. This requires a Customer Master. You want to maintain brand integrity and customer satisfaction levels. So if this person is one of your customers, and they “liked” you on Facebook, perhaps to win a prize or receive a discount, then you not only have their “standard” customer profile information, you also have the supplemental information of their Facebook name. They are already in your database and you know who they are. You can contact them and resolve the issue, ideally in real-time, before your customer loyalty or your brand reputation is tarnished.
The second side of this is that big data can provide valuable information which can supplement the data that you’re already mastering. Yes, it works both ways. For example, let’s take a utility company that is mastering the location data of their smart meters, as well as the product data associated with the meters, transformers, and all the other important assets of the business. From the (big) data, integrated with the real-time analysis tools, it is discovered that a smart meter is no longer reporting its data. Because you are mastering location data, you know where this meter is, you know what type of meter it is, and you know what customer is affected. The call logs can verify whether the customer has already called in a loss of service. Having all this data allow the utility company to dispatch someone close to the troubles location, investigate the problem, and resolve it quickly, perhaps even before the resident comes home from work.
So as you can see, big data, master data, and integration together can produce valuable insight and real business value. Want to know more? Attend our webinar entitled “Taming Big Data and MDM with Integration” on May 15, 2013. You can register at http://www.softwareag.com/corporate/res/webinars/innovation/default.asp
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