eBook
EnterWorks Agile Data Fabric
Read this eBook to learn how rapid digital transformation has placed data at the core of every infrastructure. It’s also changed the way that companies must approach master data management (MDM).
MDM has become an indispensable asset for companies, but not for just the traditional “back office” reasons. Looking toward the future, MDM must serve as both a solid foundation for managing and governing data, as well as an enabler when it comes to acting on emerging trends.
In this eBook, we’ll review the top three MDM elements that companies need in order to grow and evolve, along with guidance on leveraging EnterWorks Agile Data Fabric™ (ADF) to break free of traditional data restraints and become a boundaryless enterprise.
1) Adaptability: Graph-Like Data Model
When companies are tasked with solving an immediate problem, it can be tempting to take a narrow approach to MDM. While the appeal for a quick fix is understandable, in our digital age it’s a costly mistake.
Why? Because business needs will always evolve, and there will always be more data to manage. Once your platform hits its scalability ceiling, you’ll be left ripping and replacing, going way over budget, or adding and running multiple platforms just to keep pace.
In short, companies simply can’t afford to get handcuffed to a platform that can’t adapt.
Instead, according to Gartner, the survival of any business will depend on an agile, data-centric architecture that allows it to scale and evolve.1
Next-Generation Data Visualization
Representing this evolution to agility, EnterWorks ADF provides a “graphlike structure” with a node properties data model that weaves together attributes, validation rules, security, relationships to objects, etc. Beyond just a flat relational model, the N-Tier architecture provides rich capability, allowing companies to tune and extend the platform’s functionality without coding.
- Scalable: If you need to add more resources, you can do it per tier, without affecting the other tiers.
- Easy to manage: You can manage each tier separately, adding or modifying each tier without affecting the other tiers.
- Flexible: Expand each tier in any manner that requirements dictate.
2) Architecture: Open APIs & Microservices
The pace of digital transformation has placed a cloud of urgency over nearly every industry. The ability to act now on emerging trends will be a huge part of an enterprise’s success moving forward.
Rita Sallam, distinguished vice president and analyst at Gartner, advises data and analytics leaders to “actively monitor, experiment with, or deploy emerging technologies. Don’t just react to trends as they mature.”3
But how do you do that while still keeping your data and ROI in check?
The EnterWorks view is that architecture holds the key to innovation. With the ADF architecture, you can extend your platform’s functionality – vertically and horizontally – without the burden of coding or changing its core foundation.
Extend the MDM Core with Specialized Functionality
EnterWorks ADF provides a plug-in framework for integrating new services – accomplished with an Open API gateway to our Microservices layer.
This is helpful from a vertical standpoint, where there are certain tools required per industry. For example, an electrical company may need configuration tools to assemble a machine product, which is highly niche. With ADF, companies can go and grab that capability from an outside innovator rather than build custom integrations themselves.
In this way, the platform is future-proofed and extremely flexible to take advantage of the latest-and-greatest technology and trends, tailored for your exact needs and industry challenges.
- Build-in nuances to the platform that are required for their specific industry, and/or
- Expands the scope of MDM into IoT, blockchain, and other evolving touchpoints.
3) Architecture: Open APIs & Microservices
An important aspect of future-proofing MDM lies in the ability to innovate inside the core platform, as well as incorporate outside innovation.
Agile Data Fabric makes this possible through:
- Our hybrid data cloud for incorporating “marketplace cloud services,” and
- Automation enabled by AI and Machine Learning.
The ADF Marketplace
The ADF Marketplace offers cloud-based services to find vertical-specific or network-specific functionality to plug-in to your MDM platform. Partners using the framework offer new features and functionality through the ADF community. Our marketplace includes an array of value-add applications
and services, including:
- Vendor scorecard services and data onboarding – e.g., Vendor Portal/Mapping
- Content Enrichment – including Categorization, Product Relations (Upsell, Cross-sell), Normalization, etc.
- Market Intelligence – e.g., Review Analysis, Comparative Searches, Facets of interests, etc.
- Syndication Services – ADF partner integrations to prebuilt, full-featured connectors, cloud-based storefronts (Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, etc.), and marketplaces (Amazon, Walmart, eBay, etc.) for seamless data exchange
- Third-party PaaS Services – ADF partner integrations to prebuilt, full-featured connectors to cloud-based ERP, Sales, CRM, and Supply Chain systems for seamless data exchange
When discussing the Top 10 Data and Analytics Trends, Gartner also points to the importance of leveraging AI and machine learning in data management, stating:
“It is automating many of the manual tasks and allows less technically skilled users to be more autonomous using data. It also allows highly skilled technical resources to focus on higher value tasks.”4
In the case of EnterWorks ADF, the platform incorporates “Rule AI and Machine Learning” to automate the creation of data quality rules, using metadata-driven AI and machine learning analysis of data profiles. Incorporating AI and Machine Learning is another way ADF supports the rapid delivery of advanced functionality.
Conclusion
Looking to the road ahead, analysts and experts agree that outdated approaches to MDM will result in rigid tools that will soon crumble under the pressures of an overload of data.
In contrast, an open and scalable architecture will allow businesses to adapt and act on the many opportunities that digital transformation brings. EnterWorks Agile Data Fabric, which weaves together data domains and provides a gateway to plug-in the latest scientific tools, provides the graphlike data model that analysts predict will be increasingly crucial.
Donald Feinberg, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, provides this insight into the ability to survive what lies ahead, saying:
- Revolutionary Agile Data Fabric™ technology weaves together data domains
- Business-friendly platform for high user adoption, no coding required
- Hosted private cloud SaaS, your private cloud, on-premise, or hybrid
- Perpetual, term, and SaaS licenses
- Lowest total cost of ownership
- Fastest go-live times in the industry
1. Press Release: Gartner Identifies Top 10 Data and Analytics Technology Trends for 2019, February 18, 2019, https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-02-18-gartner-identifies-top-10-data-and-analytics-technolo.
2. Moore, Susan, Gartner Top 10 Data and Analytics Trends, November 5, 2019, https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-data-analytics-trends/.
3. Moore, Gartner Top 10 Data and Analytics Trends.
4. Moore, Gartner Top 10 Data and Analytics Trends.
5. Gartner Identifies Top 10 Data and Analytics Technology Trends for 2019, Gartner Press Release.