Comments on: Gartner’s IT Expo/Symposium 2008 – Orlando http://blogs.gartner.com/andrew_white/2008/10/16/gartners-it-exposymposium-2008-orlando/ A member of the Gartner Blog Network Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:59:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: awhite http://blogs.gartner.com/andrew_white/2008/10/16/gartners-it-exposymposium-2008-orlando/comment-page-1/#comment-3 awhite Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:50:57 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/andrew_white/?p=24#comment-3 Dan, it looks like you are confusing the issue. MDM is a discipline that seeks explicitly to improve the data quality of the master data in question to the point that a “single view” of the data is achieved. As such, it can’t get worse (else by definition MDM was not initiated). MDM may or may not include data federation; that is in fact a specific on implementation style (the ‘how’ single-view is achieved). But I agree your last point, data quality and MDM are related, but different. Dan, it looks like you are confusing the issue. MDM is a discipline that seeks explicitly to improve the data quality of the master data in question to the point that a “single view” of the data is achieved. As such, it can’t get worse (else by definition MDM was not initiated). MDM may or may not include data federation; that is in fact a specific on implementation style (the ‘how’ single-view is achieved). But I agree your last point, data quality and MDM are related, but different.

]]> By: Dan Sholler http://blogs.gartner.com/andrew_white/2008/10/16/gartners-it-exposymposium-2008-orlando/comment-page-1/#comment-2 Dan Sholler Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:30:25 +0000 http://blogs.gartner.com/andrew_white/?p=24#comment-2 Well, MDM certainly can make the extent of your data quality problem visible, but it does not change the character of the problem in any way. If you have 3 customer master databases, each of which has duplicates, the problem can seem worse after you apply MDM to federate the data. (before you applied it, you could only see 2 of me.. after you apply it, there may be 6 of me in one view... ) This is an example of how it can appear worse, but the fact is that there always were 6, it was just they were only accessible 2 at a time. I have always cautioned not to tie the two things together. The value of MDM as a means of federating the complete set of master data is separate from the value of improving the quality of that data. Given that they have separate value propositions, they can be approached separately. Obviously, one would not design the MDM methods to propagate obvious quality flaws, but neither should one insist on fixing every quality flaw as a precondition for doing MDM. Well, MDM certainly can make the extent of your data quality problem visible, but it does not change the character of the problem in any way. If you have 3 customer master databases, each of which has duplicates, the problem can seem worse after you apply MDM to federate the data. (before you applied it, you could only see 2 of me.. after you apply it, there may be 6 of me in one view… ) This is an example of how it can appear worse, but the fact is that there always were 6, it was just they were only accessible 2 at a time.

I have always cautioned not to tie the two things together. The value of MDM as a means of federating the complete set of master data is separate from the value of improving the quality of that data. Given that they have separate value propositions, they can be approached separately. Obviously, one would not design the MDM methods to propagate obvious quality flaws, but neither should one insist on fixing every quality flaw as a precondition for doing MDM.

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