Pillar No. 2: Information Integration and Exchange

Abstract

With an understanding of information sourcing, I now move to the topic of information integration and exchange. As shown in Chapter 4, information sourcing involves looking at the extraction strategies that are now extended to the integration approaches in vogue today. Integration approaches are largely driven by the target on which the data is loaded. For instance a data warehouse integration strategy will differ from that of an operational data store or a data integration hub. The nature of data, the latency of data, and the usage of integrated data play a key role in determining the data integration strategy. Information integration and exchange is a key tenet of EIM and deals with the information flow from source systems to consuming or subscribing systems using an integration engine. In today’s complex business environments where a lot of data is exchanged between trading partners and suppliers, the integration strategy becomes crucial in addressing information gaps as well as a better understanding of business process efficiencies and bottlenecks. Some of the key drivers to consider while deciding on the integration approach include the following: