New Book Review: "Enterprise Master Data Management"
New book review for Enterprise Master Data Management: An SOA Approach to Managing Core Information, by Allen Dreibelbis, Eberhard Hechler, Ivan Milman, Martin Oberhofer, Paul van Run, and Dan Wolfson, IBM Press, 2008, reposted here:
The best text on enterprise master data management (MDM) in the marketplace today. Other reviewers have commented that this work is "the Bible" of MDM, and this reviewer agrees with this assessment at a deeper level than acknowledging its near-600 pages of content. In addition to providing an introduction to MDM, the authors walk the reader through architecting solutions and provide industry examples at a level of detail not found anywhere else. As a consultant, one aspect of this book that this reviewer especially appreciated is its true vendor neutrality. It is not until Appendix B that the authors mention commercial products in this space, and although this appendix might help readers understand what might be purchased as commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software, it is quickly apparent that there has been a lot of movement over the last two years.
Admittedly, after reading this book for the first time, this reviewer understands why the authors recommend first reading chapter 1 ("Introducing Master Data Management") followed by chapter 3 ("MDM Reference Architecture") and chapter 9 ("MDM and Data Governance") in order to understand MDM, data governance, and how to implement MDM, but these chapters also contain long stretches of content sans diagrams that are often slowly drawn out, so reading chapters in order is recommended unless the reader is already knowledgeable about MDM and is looking for industry-specific examples, in which case chapter 6 ("PIM-MDM Solution Blueprints") and chapter 7 ("CDI-MDM Solution Blueprints") should be read, or the reader is looking to integrate MDM with other systems, in which case chapter 8 ("MDM Integration Blueprints") should be read, although chapter 8 has difficulty standing on its own and the reading of chapters 6 and 7 heavily relies on chapter 5 ("MDM Architecture Patterns").
The authors present well MDM and service-oriented architecture (SOA) theory and how MDM enables SOA, and this reviewer especially appreciated their presentation on patterns and industry examples. MDM architecture patterns are broken down into (1) "MDM Hub Patterns", (2) "Information Focused Application Integration", (3) "Process Focused Application Integration", and (4) "Enterprise Systems Deployment", which are further broken down into the following, respectively: (1) "Transaction Hub", "Coexistence Hub", and "Registry Hub", (2) "Initial Load" and "Information Synchronization", (3) "Transaction Interception", "Messaging", and "ESB", and (4) "MDM-DW Integration", "MDM-BI Analytical System Integration", "MDM-ERP Integration", and "MDM-CRM Integration".
The authors follow up their presentation on patterns by providing solution insight to New Product Introduction (NPI) for the consumer electronics industry, Global Data Synchronization (GDS) for the retail industry, and PIM-RFID for tracking and tracing product, as well as solutions to Master Patient Index (MPI) for the healthcare industry, Cross- and Up-Sell and Fraud and Theft for the banking and insurance industry, and Self-Service Website for the telecommunications industry. Along the way, the authors discuss business context, relevant business patterns, relationships between business patterns and architecture patterns, and provide dozens of diagrams that tie-in directly to the discussion, walking the reader through architecture components and the interactions between these components. Expect to spend some time reading through these examples. Well recommended text on MDM for a wide spectrum of reader needs from the high-level to the deep-dive, but be aware that data models, a critical aspect of MDM, are unfortunately not discussed.