Andrew WhiteI was on a briefing today with TopQuadrant, a small vendor focused on semantic modeling technology that I wrote up in last years Cool Vendors for MDM note, when I decided to search on Google the term “semantics MDM”. It created a long list – but was not one of the “common” searches that Google populates its search field. That was interesting to me – why is the link between MDM and semantics not that obvious or frequent?
As I searched I came across the following article, “MDM is Not Enough – Semantic Enterprise is Needed“ - which, once you read it, repeats (an updates) an idea I published back in 2001 and 2002, and wrote up on my blog a short while ago: The Semantic Enterprise. Its a good article that connects MDM and semantic (web) technology.
But it is odd that the link between MDM and semantics is not yet firmly established. Given that MDM is focused on assuring consistency in a particular type of data across a business, it seems pretty clear to me that MDM and semantic modeling, managing and reconciliation go hand in hand. I guess it’s to do with maturity – maybe the connection will evolve. Certainly, as more users established send and third generation MDM initiatives (with different MDM technology) the need for something to manage the pieces between MDM data stores, and all the stores where the data resides, will only increase.
Category: MDM Semantics TopQuadrant Tags: MDM, Semantics, TopQuadrant
3 responses so far ↓
1 Robert Rich May 28, 2009 at 5:34 pm
You’d think Top Quandrant is an ideal tool to build an ontology that supports the inter-mediation of master data between at least all the most widely installed databases found in the SAP and Oracle environments together with the predominant 3rd party reference data.
2 Andrew White May 28, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Well yes Robert, you might very well say that. I can’t possibly comment. Where did I hear that phrase from? But if this were possible, why do so many users remain “in the dark” about this? How many businesses really think of semantics when they think of simplifying integration of complex heterogeneous environments?
3 Robert Rich May 29, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Andrew maybe business users are just in their own space and the darkness is between them and their business neighbors. It occurs to me the elephant in the mdm room is that master data is already being managed all over the place and for the most part it needs to stay where it is however inconsistent (in part because it’s really hard to replace). Yet there are very compelling benefits to motivating and applying that famous “single view”. Maybe more “logic of record” than “system of record”. Semantics light the MDM neighborhood! Cheers!