Jai Shankar
asked on
ESB/MasterDatabase/BizTalk/Is it needed?
Hi - I was wondering if someone can advise please. Our organisation uses a ERP systems which has 4000 Relations tables. There is a discussions on creating a master database - where any changes to these tables are populated into Master database. I am worried about this approach - for example, there is no business logic and any changes gets sent to this MD, which is used for integration with other systems? I would have thought you use master database to bring in data from various systems rather than just duplicating one system into another.
The argument for creating a master database is so there is no need for peer to peer integration - I agree peer to peer is not good but thats what what BizTalk is there for. They want to use BizTalk to pull data from the ERP into Master Database and then use SSIS to push data out to other systems. I can't see why they can't they just use BizTalk to transform the data and push the data out. Their other argument if the ERP system ever goes cloud it is not possible to do a full extract (i.e, not delta extract) using SSIS - but the issue nobody even know if we will ever even go hosted solution for the ERP we have. Additionally, even in such a case if there is a good business case I am sure the cloud prvoide will let SSIS access directly to database on the hosted cloud. Do you agree? Can you give your inputs on the flaws with this approach or is it just me worrying?
Thank you.
The argument for creating a master database is so there is no need for peer to peer integration - I agree peer to peer is not good but thats what what BizTalk is there for. They want to use BizTalk to pull data from the ERP into Master Database and then use SSIS to push data out to other systems. I can't see why they can't they just use BizTalk to transform the data and push the data out. Their other argument if the ERP system ever goes cloud it is not possible to do a full extract (i.e, not delta extract) using SSIS - but the issue nobody even know if we will ever even go hosted solution for the ERP we have. Additionally, even in such a case if there is a good business case I am sure the cloud prvoide will let SSIS access directly to database on the hosted cloud. Do you agree? Can you give your inputs on the flaws with this approach or is it just me worrying?
Thank you.
Shaun Vermaak
Totally agree with you. Your relay messages, enrich if from varies sources and pass on. Building an MD does not fit into the design of an ESB
Without understanding the size and complexity of your current environment I need to be very careful when advising on this subject. But generally speaking the idea of having such MD sounds extravagant and unwarranted. Also there are two ideas conflated here: 1) the use of MD for tracking changes and 2) integration.
Tracking changes can be done at the source tables through turning on audit.
For integration it makes no sense to design your own ESB solution in this day and age. If the spider web of your systems gets complicated to manage integrations on the P2P basis, consider industry middleware offerings.
Master Data Management is very important, business rules need to be defined and "single source of truth" has to be determined for any given data.
The flaws of the MD approach are that I don't see the value of it (maybe I did not quite grasp the reason behind it) but designing and maintaining such dB will definitely be quite an arduous exercise.
Hope this makes sense.
Tracking changes can be done at the source tables through turning on audit.
For integration it makes no sense to design your own ESB solution in this day and age. If the spider web of your systems gets complicated to manage integrations on the P2P basis, consider industry middleware offerings.
Master Data Management is very important, business rules need to be defined and "single source of truth" has to be determined for any given data.
The flaws of the MD approach are that I don't see the value of it (maybe I did not quite grasp the reason behind it) but designing and maintaining such dB will definitely be quite an arduous exercise.
Hope this makes sense.
ASKER
fantastic advise! thank you,
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