| There are a number of competing approaches for | | | | Moving and transforming legacy data into different |
| consolidating the enterprise IT, from data | | | | warehousing entities with data propagation and |
| consolidation via integration to federation by means | | | | consolidation confuses the pragmatic business user. |
| of data warehousing and complex approaches such | | | | Data must be assembled from real-time sources in an |
| as BPM with SOA. On the data warehousing and | | | | approach that is called federation. Federation implies |
| business intelligence front there is a slow realization | | | | that each coordinated entity retains its freedom to |
| that the use of million dollar investments in | | | | perform as necessary rather than forcing all IT and |
| technology are not paying off. Pseudo-scientific | | | | organization components into a straightjacket. An |
| research is performed to come to the obvious | | | | imbedded authorization model provides the user with |
| conclusion that data warehouses are underutilized. It | | | | the flexibility to do with the information what is |
| would have been enough for a board member to sit | | | | necessary. |
| down and try to work with the abstract information | | | | The need to develop a complex data integration |
| provided! Much of it has to do with the inability of | | | | strategy is a completely unnecessary overhead |
| users to understand and thus trust the information | | | | caused by a technical data warehousing approach. |
| that they are given. | | | | Data federation has to be linked with content |
| I propose that the solution is not training and more | | | | federation in a publish and subscribe manner. |
| meta-information such as quality, definitional and | | | | Metadata and meta-information must be searchable |
| navigational metadata. How about simply making IT | | | | by business user and offer information about the |
| what it should be: practical and focused on the work | | | | business context of data. |
| task (business service) at hand? There seems to be | | | | Large software vendors such as IBM and Oracle |
| the idea that there are ‘higher’ management | | | | propose grand data warehousing solutions that |
| activities that require these abstract data, which I | | | | require huge and expensive projects that in the end |
| suggest is an illusion. It only emphasizes the | | | | do no more than to tie the business user in an IT |
| disconnect between management and the user | | | | (usually produced and run by an external outsourcer) |
| servicing the customer. | | | | straightjacket. |
| Information makes no sense when delivered in | | | | Data federation has to be linked with creating user |
| abstract form and disconnected from the business | | | | oriented, customer focused business services that |
| activity. Information has to be provided in real world | | | | improve the quality of operations directly and are not |
| entities and in document form in a business context | | | | just concerned with gathering abstract data in the |
| that a user can relate to. Therefore data | | | | highest possible quality that then has to be applied in |
| consolidation and content creation have to go hand in | | | | again an abstract manner by people who don’t |
| hand in the support of customer focused business | | | | understand the meaning of the data. |
| services or processes. | | | | |