Foreword
In the last few weeks I have received duplicate mailings from my bank. My doctor confused my records with another patient, also “D. Farmer.” A carrier delivered a ceiling fan, ordered online, with a remote control that does not match it; and the next day delivered a pair of shoes of the right brand, the right color, the right size, but the wrong model.
I doubt that I am especially unlucky: we have all had similar experiences. The retailers, manufacturers, and service providers on the other side of these mishaps all have something in common—problems with master data.
That these problems are so familiar is a sign that they are pervasive. And over the years we, in the world of data management, have tried to solve them in many ways. We created ...

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