After one near Enterprise-level failure using this kind of solution, I wouldn't be pushing people in this direction. See: http://udidahan.weblogs.us/archives/037035.html
We tried this with canonical schemas. We tried this with EAI tools. At the business level, things just weren't compatible across the board. YMMV, of course, but if you're on a MDM mission for the entire enterprise, I would suggest spending most of your time with the business folks to understand what commonalities there really are, as opposed to those you might imagine. The differences often lay in the context and less in the subjects themselves, in my experience. Maybe we can make a killing selling MDM tools to the water companies around the world. Just a thought. -- Udi http://www.UdiDahan.com > Currently, in most organizations, information associated with a key > business subject area is stored in a variety of applications, > platforms, and repositories. Moreover, information elements are > defined differently across these silos. For example, a customer > within one silo might be defined as the person who purchased an item > within the past 3 years, where in another silo a customer could be > considered a person who requested a quote, but never actually > purchased anything. > > MDM is the process that not only consolidates key subject data, but > also provides consistent definition of this data across the > organization. Simply put, MDM works the same as the water department > of your local metropolitan area where they integrate water gathered > from wells, aqueducts, lakes, etc., store it in a reservoir, cleanse > it to an agreed quality level, and deliver it consistently and in a > timely manner to every house or business in the area.>>
