Data Integration

December 28, 2017

For BI, you must know the data integration process

Understanding the data integration process is central to self-service BI and data architecture design, consultant Rick Sherman says in an end-of-year look at data management trends. […]
April 27, 2017
Business intelligence and data cleaning

The life-changing magic of tidying up your data

If your data is a mess, what are you waiting for? Like many other companies, maybe yours has been ignoring a lot of the things that […]
May 31, 2016

Selecting the right data integration tool for your needs

As the need to pull together the growing volumes of data that’s generated and collected by organizations has increased, several types of data integration software have […]
May 24, 2016

How to evaluate the features of a data integration product

Selecting the right data integration product is critical to meeting the increasing demand in companies for data that can help drive more informed business decisions. The […]
May 17, 2016

How to justify the purchase of a data integration tool

The growing importance of business intelligence and data analytics applications in driving business decision making has made data integration’s vital role in the enterprise crystal clear. […]
May 11, 2016

Data integration platforms take users beyond ETL software

Whether we’re discussing the impact that the tsunami of big data is having on organizations or the cloud application takeover of traditional on-premises applications, the common […]
April 12, 2016

Enterprise Data World 2016 – San Diego

The 20th annual Enterprise Data World (EDW) Conference is recognized as the most comprehensive educational conference on data management in the world. Rick Sherman will be conducing […]
November 28, 2014

New developments make data integration a businesswide effort

Data integration software is now much more than just extract, transform and load tools — it encompasses a wide range of platforms and technologies supporting real-time […]
September 19, 2012

The State of Data and Analytics

The good news is that enterprises have recognized the significant business value of analyzing the surging amount of information and then acting upon that analysis. The bad […]
August 30, 2012

Decision time: Automated data integration tools versus manual coding

SearchDataManagement recently interviewed me about automated data integration tools versus manual coding: Data integration is often still done by hand, through SQL coding and stored procedures, according […]
August 15, 2012

The Nuts and Bolts of a Data Integration Platform

I’ll be on DM Radio this Thursday, August 16, 2012, 03:00PM ET. Registration. Here’s what it’s all about: Getting data where it needs to go is […]
August 8, 2012

Misconceptions Holding Back Use of Data Integration Tools

There’s no question that data integration technology is a good thing. So why aren’t businesses using it as much as they should be? Data integration software […]
March 8, 2012

BI’s Dirty Secrets – The Unfortunate Domination of Manually-Coded Extracts

Manually-coded extracts are another dirty secret of the BI world. I’ve been seeing them for years, in both large and small companies. They grow haphazardly and […]
September 22, 2011

Data integration processes: it’s not the tool, it’s how you use it

In my discussions with clients, prospects, students and networking with folks at seminars I am always asked about my opinion or recommendations on data integration and […]
July 13, 2011

Two key elements to providing data and data integration services

Establishing and operating an Integration Competency Center (ICC)  is clearly an effective approach to breaking down the business, budgetary and political silos within many enterprises. These […]
June 29, 2011

When is ELT the Right Choice?

When I teach data integration concepts in my classes at various corporations or to my students at Northeastern University, one of the topics I address is […]
June 20, 2011

Data Integration Challenges

Data quality and data integration challenges are two of the biggest problems plaguing BI initiatives. Mark Brunelli of SearchDataManagement.com interviewed me the other day for their […]
April 27, 2011

Customer Data Integration – Separating the Hype from the Reality

There is a lot of buzz in the industry about the emerging class of customer data integration software that businesses are using to gain a single […]
April 20, 2011

Customer Data Integration (CDI) – for a single view of your customer

How profitable are your customers? What have they purchased lately? Are there opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell to them? You and everyone else in your organization […]
March 17, 2010

Podcast: New technologies, techniques for on-premise and SaaS data integration

My latest podcast: New technologies, techniques for on-premise and SaaS data integration Software as a Service (SaaS) data integration is an emerging technology some companies are […]
January 29, 2010

Solving your application and data integration challenges

My new video with SearchDataManagement.com: Solving your application and data integration challenges Because of the poor economy and corporate demands to increase revenue while cutting costs, […]
January 26, 2010

Ten Data Integration Trends for 2010

As we begin both a New Year and new decade in 2010 it is a great time to discuss the significant trends impacting the data integration […]
November 17, 2009

ETL tools: Don’t Forget About the Little Dogs

I’m not only concerned about hand-coding versus ETL tools;  I’m also concerned that potential buyers of ETL tools and the market in general are only looking […]
November 6, 2009

Data Integration: Hand-coding Using ETL Tools Part 2

This is a continuation of an earlier post that discussed the problems of hand-coding using ETL tools. What Went Wrong? There are two aspects of effectively […]
November 4, 2009

Data Integration: Hand-coding Using ETL Tools

We are creatures of habit. It’s not easy to stop doing something the way we’ve always done it. Especially when we think we are right (but […]
October 28, 2009

Understanding the latest data integration strategies and technologies

There are many emerging data integration strategies and technologies that IT can leverage to create the information needed for their business. When examining these, it is […]
September 28, 2009

Understanding key data integration trends and business drivers

This decade, and especially this recession, has seen a tsunami in demand for the data needed to make sound business decisions. Yet businesses continue to fall […]
August 25, 2009

People, Process & Politics: Pros & Cons of ICC Organizational Models

As we discussed in my last People, Process & Politics post, the four organizational models most often used to implement ICCs are: common practices, technology standards, […]
July 31, 2009

People, Process & Politics: Integration Competency Centers

In our “People, Process & Politics” series we have discussed how non-technical aspects of business intelligence, data integration or data warehousing projects are the critical components of […]
June 30, 2009

Data Integration: Beyond ETL and Data Warehousing

Data integration suffers from an image problem. It has become synonymous with extract, transform and load (ETL). Likewise, ETL has been regarded as a data warehousing (DW) technology.  Both […]
June 24, 2009

People, Process & Politics: Business & Integration

In our previous post People, Process & Politics: Stop the (Integration) Madness we discussed how we have promoted integration silos by  fragmenting those efforts across organizations, […]
May 18, 2009

Whitepaper: Data Integration: Increasing its Success and ROI

Data Integration: Increasing its Success and ROI (120.1 KB) Enterprises need to take a new approach to information and data integration. First, business and IT people […]
February 19, 2009

Beyond ETL and Data Warehousing

Data integration suffers from an image problem. It has become synonymous with extract, transform and load. Likewise, ETL has been regarded as a data warehousing technology. […]
January 28, 2009

DM Radio – The Business Side of Data Integration

I'll be on DM Radio Thursday Jan 29 at 3:00 EST. We'll be discussing how to design, evangelize and manage data integration projects. Sami Akbay of […]
October 2, 2008

The Song Remains the Same (Data Integration Framework)

In 2003, the inaugural column I wrote discussed the Data Integration Framework (DIF). This approach is the foundation that I have used for more than 20 […]