Being an Information Manager...

Different types of data integration

Integration continues to be a difficult subject and this is quite often because there is so much variety in integration needs and available solutions. Therefore it is important to distinguish what kind of data integration we are trying to solve. Making an inventory of all the integration requirements and a grouping per type

1. One record (write / update / delete) - usually for data entry of transactions or reference data
2. Retrieve one record (read - look-up) - usually for master reference data
3. Retrieve one record (read - transfer) - usually for a transaction, but also to be used for master data if it needs to be replicated
4. Combining data from different sources (read / combine / potentially transform / present) - usually for reporting
5. A bulk data transfer (retrieve / transfer - including a potential transformation) - for e.g. data warehousing purposes, i.e. to support a better performance in a different de-coupled data model
6. A bulk data transfer (retrieve / transfer - including a potential transformation) - for analytical and modelling purposes, where the data in the target system will be subject to change

Enterprise information architecture needs to deal with all these types of integration and usually it will deal with these different types in different ways. By understanding the different types and grouping the integration requirements per type it is possible to rationalise the technology supporting the integration.

Through this it is also possible to see that certain technologies only meet the requirements of a few of the types. For example SOA type architectures are usually good for single record situations (type 1-4).

Labels: integration

posted by Evert Ruijs @ 11:37 AM