| Collecting, refining and using enterprise data is a | | | | themselves. |
| requirement for any organization today. Company | | | | With this type of platform, data integration for |
| management must be able to gain insight to their | | | | data warehousing, Business intelligence, and other |
| data to make meaningful business decisions based | | | | initiatives can be completed more quickly and cost |
| on the metrics. To achieve this data integration is | | | | effectively. |
| a must. | | | | Another key component of the right integration |
| The need for data integration in today's business | | | | solution is to ensure that it has built in connectivity |
| environment is growing. Unfortunately as | | | | to all the systems you need integrated now and |
| implemented in many environments requires large | | | | in the future. This includes all major enterprise |
| IT teams and dedicated experts to manage this | | | | applications, in house databases and systems, flat |
| data and set up. These teams include IT | | | | files, Cloud and SaaS oriented applications and |
| developers and business analysts each trying to | | | | infrastructures. Your integration solution must also |
| define the overall integration process. This mix can | | | | handle and move large volumes of data in a short |
| create serious road blocks and increases in lost | | | | amount of time. Most enterprises can have |
| time and revenue. | | | | millions of records they need shared between |
| Some companies use manual methods and in | | | | their various systems, and it is essential that your |
| house coding to achieve their data integration. This | | | | integration software is not the bottle neck for |
| is a long arduous process rife with human error, | | | | moving this data in batch, trickle, or real time |
| multiple iterations and long testing times. Even | | | | methods. |
| worse, these methods are not easily managed, | | | | Your vendor needs to offer robust and well |
| do not scale well, and are not future proofed | | | | documented support packages. Data integration is |
| against changes to the IT infrastructure. The | | | | a complex and mission critical layer to the success |
| result is the need to constantly rewrite code, | | | | of your business so it is important to have a |
| requiring entire teams dedicated to integration | | | | domain expert at your disposal for complex |
| year round. This is simply unmanageable. | | | | projects. Review the vendor's customer |
| Data integration is something that a modern | | | | references and customer success stories to |
| software package can achieve with the | | | | know if they are the right choice for your |
| management of a technical business analyst. This | | | | organization. |
| is defined as a business user who is technically | | | | Do your homework. The solution you pick should |
| adept, but still not a programmer. This frees up | | | | meet a number of checklists from the software |
| IT to focus on more pressing issues within the | | | | to support, to the vendor's integration |
| company and lets the business team member | | | | methodologies. Choosing the right vendor will save |
| with the vision for what metrics and data they | | | | you a lot of money and work. |
| need to create the actual data integration | | | | |