|
Lonispace has significant years of
experience in the practice of Master
Data Management (MDM) specifically
related to integrating enterprise
data in an orderly and structured
manner as it is externalised via
various interface types and or data
models and presented to the
enterprise for use in other
applications or environments.
The Common Data Model (CDM) is a
collection of message structures
used within the enterprise to
represent the business entities that
will be involved across various
integrated systems. A CDM removes
the dependencies on the data format
and semantics used by the
applications and can be very useful
if an existing application is likely
to be replaced by another
application in the future.
The Common Data Model (CDM) is a
primary output of a normalisation
process. During this analysis, the
data is aggregated and commonalities
are observed and optimised. This
process is undertaken with the
knowledge of the participating
applications and required outputs to
ensure that these requirements are
still supported. A number of
standards exist specific to
particular business objects, such as
customers (CRML), or for the
interchange of finance data between
applications or organisations (ie.
SWIFT messages).
Once the Data Modelling scope is
determined, these standards need to
be reviewed to determine their
applicability as inputs to the
modelling process. This is of
particular use when data may need to
be exchanged with other businesses;
the use of an externally managed
standard for these interchanges is
often desirable, especially if the
standard describes additional
operations that will facilitate the
data exchange (such as
non-repudiation).
A Services Orientated
Architecture (SOA) is the most
favoured approach for integrating
disparate data sources today, a SOA
support the concepts of ESB and CDM
working together to achieve full
decoupling between enterprise
applications; hence eliminating the
need for point-to-point
integrations. Each application to be
integrated is associated with a
Logical Adapter that sits between
the application and the Enterprise
Service Bus (ESB). The Logical
Adapter implements semantic and
integration logic to ensure that
messages are understood both by
consumers on the ESB and by the
attached system. Components will
produce messages onto the ESB, and
consume messages from the ESB via
the Adapters. It is highly
recommended that messages on the ESB
comply with the Common Data Model
(CDM) format.
In order to participate in the
ESB delivery of messages, each of
the Logical Adapters exposes a
Common Service Interface and a
description of the data structures
used by the Adapter. The CSI will
contain a Common Data Model for the
application data, and in addition
further information related to the
transport and other requirements of
the ESB. For example, if message
based auditing is used, then a
unique message ID may be also
preserved within the CSI structure.
Standardisation of object
identifiers across the SOA will also
be required, so that for example, a
customer known in one system can be
readily identified in other systems
across the enterprise. The
representation of the object
identifiers and their state will
also be included in this analysis.
A CDM supports a variety of
critical technology requirements
whenever data is to be externalised
from an application, whether it be a
simple interfaces or a major
migration of legacy applications.
|
