Data Integration Software
As the business environment becomes more complex, companies are faced with the challenge of collecting and integrating data from multiple disparate sources. Companies store data in different silos, formats, or even based on their source (Sales vs. Finance). Even within a company, different departments might store data in isolated silos that are not accessible to other company departments. However, as information sharing becomes more critical and data volumes increase, data integration is becoming more and more important for a company’s success. Data (and hence, information sharing) allows executives to make smarter and faster decisions for their company.
Data Integration Software
Presenting a unified view of data to the company, through a central location, by collecting data from various sources is Enterprise Data Integration. Specialized software applications built to handle this process are ‘Data Integration software’ applications.
The Enterprise Data Integration process is not as simple as it sounds. Enterprise Data Integration includes numerous, distinct and complicated tasks, such as:
- Converting data from different sources into a common format,
- Scrubbing and cleaning of any discrepancies,
- Creating new calculated fields, and
- Loading data into a data warehouse (or any other common repository).
A critical process with Enterprise Data Integration process is Extraction, Transformation and Load, more commonly referred to as ETL. The ETL processes and tasks are performed with specialized ETL software applications such as Informatica and IBM – Ascential.
Enterprise Data Integration is also known as Enterprise Information Integration (EII).
Enterprise Data Integration as Part of Data Management
It is important to note that data integration is simply an intermediate step in the long cycle of data management. Reporting software applications use integrated data repository of integrated data to provide reports to executives for decisions.
MicroStrategy Complements Enterprise Data Integration software
Given the complexity of the data integration process, it is critical for companies to choose enterprise data integration software that best fits a company’s needs. Recognizing this critical decision, MicroStrategy has designed scalable reporting software that is agnostic to every enterprise data integration software tool. Such a flexible design allows CIO’s and IT Professionals to make changes to the data integration process without impacting the end-user reporting experience.
Enterprise Data Integration compiles a ‘single version of truth’ in a central repository (or a data warehouse). MicroStrategy’s reporting and analysis software reports on this single version of truth using reports, graphs, documents, dashboards and scorecards. To help companies accomplish their reporting goals, MicroStrategy has established partnerships with leading data integration software companies (such as Informatica and IBM – Ascential).