Customer Data Integration: Reaching a Single Version of the Truth

RESPONSIBILITIES OF A CDI ARCHITECTURE

Because CDI is so new, it’s important to understand the functionality associated with retrieving, transporting, transforming, and delivering data between systems. So we’ll start with a simple logical architecture, evolving it to introduce the different types of features associated with CDI. Once we’ve completed our logical architecture, we can turn to the various alternatives for physical implementation.

The goal of any architecture should be to:

• Provide a framework for addressing functions in a simplified and efficient manner

• Create an environment in which economies of scale and development reuse is the norm, not the exception

• Build an infrastructure that reflects overall system requirements, not just specialized application needs

The benefit of CDI hub technology is that it alleviates application systems from having to deal with complex data integration processing, particularly when the data integration requirements are highly specialized or apply to multiple constituents. Since the rules governing details such as household definition, customer identity recognition, or even address standardization can be complicated, it makes sense to address that processing in a single location. This should improve efficiency, improve accuracy, reduce overall costs, and decrease processing.