A new whitepaper from leading global research and data consulting firm Eckerson Group found the separation between application and data integration is creating a barrier that prevents businesses from gaining a holistic view of their data landscape and makes it difficult for them to leverage valuable data from one other. According to the paper titled, Unifying Enterprise Data: How a Data Fabric Converges Application and Data Integration, organizations can bridge the gap between the operational and analytical data realms by using a data fabric that connects to enterprise application integration (EAI) tools.
In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations rely on a myriad of applications and data sources to run their business and make informed decisions. To make data accessible when and where it’s needed, they use integration approaches that fall into two distinct categories: application integration and data integration. Application integration enables organizations to share operational data between applications, while data integration allows them to collect and prepare data for analytics. However, these two approaches leave enterprise data divided, making it harder for organizations to make full use of these assets. To learn more, or to view the complimentary report sponsored by Promethium.
According to Eckerson Group, EAI tools and data fabric serve different users with different needs and objectives providing a common user experience that serves both business and technical users. Integrating them to create a unified enterprise fabric gives analytics consumers a comprehensive view of their organization’s data landscape in a simplified and familiar environment. Equally important, it leaves in place the features that software engineers require for application development and integration.
“Organizations leverage data fabric to manage connections to disparate sources for discovery and other purposes so it can meet the needs of all users, provide a comprehensive view of operational and analytical data, and facilitate the bidirectional flow of data between them,” said Jay Piscioneri, Research Analyst at Eckerson Group and author of the report. “Extending a data fabric to include operational data via EAI tools is an ideal solution that unifies the needs of both IT and business users, as it empowers organizations to fully leverage their data wherever it is – and in any format – and provides a standardized way for finding, understanding, and working with data.”
A data fabric integrated with an EAI tool bridges the gap between operational and analytical data, as the EAI tool acts as a single proxy data source for all the operational data it manages. This unifying layer provides a cohesive user experience for building federated queries and data pipelines and accessing source documentation such as lineage, acceptable usage, data classifications, and quality. As a result, users can find and work with complex application data sources in the same way they’re accustomed to working with analytical data. By extending data fabric with an EAI tool, companies enable business teams to leverage the entire data ecosystem to support informed decision-making and innovation.
“Answering important business questions with enterprise-wide data has become an unsustainable and slow cycle of repeatedly moving and transforming data, which can’t happen without data products. However good data products can only be built on a solid data fabric foundation,” said Kaycee Lai, Founder of Promethium. “By presenting a unified and consistent view of all enterprise data and providing a fast and secure way to access it, users can create trusted data products with far greater agility. At Promethium, we are relentlessly focused on helping organizations break free from the inefficient data relay holding them back and have created a solution that prioritizes fast access to trusted answers in minutes instead of months so they will never be surprised by unexpected outcomes.”
For more such updates, follow us on Google News Martech News