Build a Data Integration Strategy
Integrate your data or disintegrate your business.
- As organizations process more information at faster rates, there is increased pressure for faster and more efficient data integration.
- Data integration has become critical for downstream functions of data management and for business operations to be successful. Misaligned integration patterns restrict the value of data.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Every IT project requires data integration: Any significant change in the application or database ecosystem requires you to address a data integration problem.
Impact and Result
- Create a data-centric integration solution that supports the flow of data through the organization and meets the organization’s requirements for data accuracy, relevance, availability, and timeliness.
- Build your data-centric integration practice with a firm foundation in governance and reference architecture and the appropriate technology and resources to ensure that the process is scalable and sustainable.
- The business’ uses of data are constantly evolving, and as a result, the integration processes that ensure data availability must be periodically reviewed and repositioned to continue to align with the business.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
8.1/10
Overall Impact
$15,877
Average $ Saved
15
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Loenbro, LLC
Guided Implementation
2/10
N/A
N/A
The engagement hasn't been completed yet. We just had one introductory meeting
Loenbro, LLC
Guided Implementation
10/10
$14,949
55
Very knowledgeable advice. Though we didn't get into a specific solution, he was right in directing us away from a solution until we better underst... Read More
Clyde & Co LLP
Guided Implementation
7/10
N/A
5
Recorded Books
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
It was good start with introduction of ways to handle data in the organization. we talked about data strategy, data integration blueprint and how t... Read More
Barnardos Australia
Guided Implementation
10/10
$43,999
18
Academic Partnerships
Guided Implementation
9/10
$10,399
9
CAF - Corporacion Andina de Fomento
Guided Implementation
9/10
$12,399
9
SThree Management Services Ltd.
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
1
Great to talk to Data Integration with Igor as this covers what we are trying to achieve going forward. Not his fault but need to talk to an Azure ... Read More
Construction Resources Management
Guided Implementation
8/10
$12,599
5
Rajesh was very knowledgeable about the topics we discussed.
Remedi SeniorCare
Guided Implementation
8/10
$1,115
2
Igor was very helpful in clarifying our options for capturing source data deletions in an ODS and EDW environment. He explained the capabilities an... Read More
NASA
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
20
ChoiceTel
Guided Implementation
10/10
$14,259
23
Analyst calls are always very informative.
Bush Brothers & Company
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
N/A
Great data conversation with Rajesh. He is clearly an expert in the field of data and provided some great information for us to consider as we bui... Read More
Helmerich & Payne, Inc.
Workshop
8/10
N/A
N/A
Mott MacDonald LLC
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Broome-Tioga Boces
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
I'm not sure of the financial impact or time savings yet. I might be able to answer that question at a later date. I thought this was very inform... Read More
Kamehameha Schools
Guided Implementation
7/10
N/A
N/A
Workshop: Build a Data Integration Strategy
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Collect Data Integration Requirements
The Purpose
The purpose of collecting data integration requirements is to ensure that the data integration strategy aligns with the business needs and priorities. It involves identifying specific business processes and data sources required for integration, enabling businesses to make informed decisions based on accurate and consistent data.
Key Benefits Achieved
The key benefits of collecting data integration requirements include improved data quality and more efficient processes. This leads to better decision-making, increased efficiency, improved analytics, enhanced collaboration, competitive advantage, improved customer experience, and cost savings for businesses.
Activities
Outputs
Identify integration pains and needs.
- Learn about the concepts of data integration and the common integration patterns and use cases.
Collect business requirements for the integration solutions.
- Understand what drives the business to need improved data flow and how to collect integration requirements.
Module 2: Analyze Integration Requirements
The Purpose
The purpose of analyzing integration requirements is to determine the best approach to integrating data sources to meet business needs. It involves identifying potential data integration challenges and developing a plan to address them, ensuring a smooth integration process.
Key Benefits Achieved
The key benefits of analyzing integration requirements include the ability to identify potential challenges and address them proactively, leading to a smoother integration process. This results in a more efficient and effective data integration strategy that aligns with business needs and priorities.
Activities
Outputs
Determine technical requirements for the integration solution.
- Capture the functional and non-functional requirements for the integration solution.
Leverage integration trends to address requirements.
- Learn about and understand the differences between trends in data integration, as well as how they can benefit your organization.
Architect the data-centric integration strategy.
- Determine selection criteria for most appropriate integration patterns.
Calculate ROI to attach dollar value.
Module 3: Design Data-Centric Integration Solution
The Purpose
The purpose of designing a data-centric integration solution is to create a framework for integrating data from multiple sources and making it available for use across the organization. It involves identifying the most appropriate integration technologies and tools to meet the specific business needs and requirements.
Key Benefits Achieved
The key benefits of designing a data-centric integration solution include improved data quality and consistency, increased efficiency and productivity, and enhanced collaboration and decision-making. It enables businesses to have a more comprehensive and accurate view of their data, leading to better insights and more informed decisions.
Activities
Outputs
Validate your data-centric integration pattern.
- Evaluate if PoC is needed to validate new patterns.
Design the consolidated data model.
- Learn about the source to target mapping tool and how to create your own processes.
Map source to target model.
- Learn about integration metadata and what metadata to capture.
Capture integration metadata.
Build a Data Integration Strategy
Integrate your data or disintegrate your business.
Table of Contents
INFO~TECH RESEARCH GROUP
Build a Data Integration Strategy
Integrate your data or disintegrate your business.
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
Analyst Perspective
Enterprise integration (EI) enables execution across the extended organization.
- Enterprise integration (EI) enables seamless execution across the extended organization.
- Enterprise integration is the practice that provides for all communication and data flow throughout the organization, from shared data structures, messages, data movement, and management to real-time service invocation. Integration is pervasive and provides real-time telemetry across the tapestry of enterprise capabilities, delivering reliable, scalable, synchronous, and asynchronous communication on demand.
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Wayne L. CainPrincipal Research Director, Enterprise Architecture
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Our understanding of the problem
This research is designed for:
- Business analysts communicating the need for improved integration of data.
- Data engineers feeling the pain of poor integration from inaccuracies and inefficiencies during the data integration lifecycle.
- Data architects looking to design and facilitate improvements in the holistic data environment.
- Data architects putting high-level architectural design changes into action.
This research will also assist:
- CIOs concerned with the cost, benefits, and overall structure of their organization’s data flow.
- Enterprise architecture trying to understand how improved integration will influence overall organizational architecture deployment.
This research will help you:
- Understand what data integration is, and how it fits into your organization.
- Identify opportunities for leveraging improved integration for data-driven insights.
- Design a loosely coupled integration architecture that is adaptable to changing needs.
- Determine the business needs for integration and design solutions to fill gaps.
This research will help them:
- To fully understand the current data situation and how data flows within the organization.
- Create an understanding of how a mature data architecture affects operations within the enterprise.
Executive Summary
Your Challenge
- As organizations process more information at faster rates, there is increased pressure for faster and more efficient data integration.
- Data integration has become critical for downstream functions of data management and for business operations to be successful. Misaligned integration patterns restrict the value of data.
Common Obstacle
- A clear understanding of the value of integration is needed to justify business investment focused on integration.
- Evolving business models are growing rapidly, exceeding the investment in data management and integration tools. As a result, there is often a large gap between business demands and IT capabilities.
Info-Tech’s Approach
- Create a data-centric integration solution that supports the flow of data through the organization and meets the organization’s requirements for data accuracy, relevance, availability, and timelines.
- Build your data-centric integration practice with a firm foundation in governance and reference architecture: the appropriate technology and resources to ensure that the process are scalable and sustainable.
- The business’ uses of data are constantly evolving and, as a result, the integration processes that ensure data availability must be periodically reviewed and repositioned to continue to align with the business.
Info-Tech Insight
Every IT project requires data integration. Any significant change in the application or database ecosystem requires you to address a data integration problem.
Your data is the foundation of your organization’s knowledge of today and insight for tomorrow
Data should flow and not be constrained by applications.
Data is one of the most important assets in a modern enterprise. Contained within an organization’s data are representations of the customers, the products, and the operational details that make an organization function. Every organization has data, and this data may fully serve the needs of the business today. However, the only constant in the world is change. Changes in addresses, amounts, product details, partners, and more occur at a rapid rate. If your data does not flow, it will quickly become stagnant. Getting up-to-date data to the right place at the right time is what data-centric integration accomplishes.
“Data is the life blood of the organization.”
(Wayne L. Cain, Principal Advisory Director, Info-Tech Research Group, 2020)
Organizations continue to struggle with explosive data growth and complexity
To keep up with increasing business demands, organizations are processing and exchanging more data than ever before.
The most difficult integration problems are caused by semantic divergent data structures and data synchronization across the enterprise. (Database Research Technology Group, n.d.)
80% of data is going to be unstructured by 2025. And 95% of enterprises are prioritizing it from now on. (NowVertical, 2022)
73% of enterprises indicate they are using traditional ETL approach to integrating their data. (TDWI Research, 2021)
Break Down Your Silos
Integrating large volumes of data from varied sources has incredible potential to yield meaningful insights. However, most organizations struggle with curating the right structure for the blending of the information to take place.
Data-centric integration capabilities strive to eliminate operational silos. Once silos have been addressed, the information is available to focus on a given problem. This is often addressed by business intelligence (BI) and analytics tools.
Data-centric integration is the solution you need to bring data together to break down data silos
On one hand …
Data has massive potential to bring insight to an organization when combined and analyzed in creative ways.
On the other hand …
It is difficult to bring data together from different sources to generate insights without time distortion.
How can these two ideas be reconciled?
Answer: Info-Tech’s Data Integration Onion Framework summarizes an organization’s data environment at a conceptual level and is used to design a common data-centric environment.
Understand the common challenges of integration to avoid the pains
There are three types of challenges that organizations face when integrating data.
-
Disconnect from the business
- Poor understanding of the integration problem and requirements leads to the construction of integrations that are ineffective for providing insights. 50% of project rework is attributable to problems with requirements. (Source: Info-Tech Research Group)
-
Lack of strategy
- Integrating data without understanding the long-term plan results in spaghettification.
36% of IT leaders have no data integration strategy. (Source: IDG survey 2020)
- Integrating data without understanding the long-term plan results in spaghettification.
36% of IT leaders have no data integration strategy. (Source: IDG survey 2020)
-
Data complexity
- Data architects and other data professionals are expected to be able to connect data using existing interface to provide at any volume and in any format – all without affecting system performance. 77% of the IT leaders agreed that they had faced internal data quality concerns in their organization. (Source: KPMG)
These challenges lead to organizations building a data architecture and integration environment that is interdependent. (Source: Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Diagnostic, N=602)
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Collect integration requirements
- Call 1: Learn about the concepts of data integration and the common integration use cases.
- Call 2: Understand what drives the business to need improved data integration, and how to collect integration requirements.
Guided Implementation 2: Analyze integration requirements
- Call 1: Determine the technical requirements for the integration solution.
- Call 2: Learn about and understand the differences between trends in data integration, as well as how they can benefit your organization.
- Call 3: Determine your ideal integration pattern.
Guided Implementation 3: Design the data-centric integration solution
- Call 1: Start with a PoC to validate your integration design.
- Call 2: Learn about the source to target mapping tool, and how to create your own.
- Call 3: Learn about integration metadata and what metadata to capture.
Contributors
- Wayne Regier, Director of Data Management, Husky Injection Molding
- Jason Bloomberg, President, Intellyx
- Hamdan Ahmad, Principal Consultant, Slalom Consulting
- Sanjay Pande, Co-Founder and Instructor, Learn Data Vault
- David Ormsby, Senior Manager, Liberty Utilities
Build a Data Integration Strategy
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