Gartner’s Andrew White on Why True Multi-Domain MDM ‘Too Far-Fetched’

Looking Ahead at the 2015 Business Intelligence Landscape

Gartner has been outspoken about the failings of multi-domain MDM, refusing to recognize multi-domain as a market-ready solution in its magic quadrant reports.

That didn’t quite cut it with some technology leaders, it seems. In a recent blog series, research VP Andrew White further addresses the question, along with other common MDM concerns submitted ahead of the firm’s Enterprise Information and MDM Summits.

Basically, attendees want to know why multi-domain is so challenging — is it a technical or a process problem? Or is it marketing?

“Though the range of technologies needed to support MDM (e.g. data quality, data model, dashboard, workflow, analytics, integration etc.) look the same in name, the reality is that there are differences,” White explains. “The differences in the technologies needed for different data domains such as customer and product, as well as additional differences that are specific to industries even for the same data domain, result in different capabilities.”

He uses the customer and product data as examples. Improving customer data quality most often requires entity resolution, whereas product data requires richer semantic or text string parsing, he explained.

That led to the development of targeted, specialized solutions, which makes it harder to shift gears and deploy a multi-domain tool, he said.

“To try to put all the capability, all the intellectual property, and all the industry support, into one single product or solution is just far fetched,” he added.

Multi-domain might work if your requirements are not complex.

If you have time, read the full blog post, along with a follow-up post with more Q&As. White covers 10 questions in all, including:

• Will there be a magic quadrant for data model management?
• What if the business doesn’t want to own the data steward process?
• When it comes to data quality, what should I clean?
• Should we pursue best of breed or single vendor with MDM?

Events

Thursday, Feb. 26, 3 p.m. ET, “What’s the Big (Data) Idea? Cool Solution Showcase” podcast. Eric Kavanagh will interview veteran Analyst Richard Hackathorn of Bolder Technologies, Dean Abbott of Smarter Remarketer, Seth Proctor of NuoDB, and Eli Collins of Cloudera.

Loraine Lawson is a veteran technology reporter and blogger. She currently writes the Integration blog for IT Business Edge, which covers all aspects of integration technology, including data governance and best practices. She has also covered IT/Business Alignment and IT Security for IT Business Edge. Before becoming a freelance writer, Lawson worked at TechRepublic as a site editor and writer, covering mobile, IT management, IT security and other technology trends. Previously, she was a webmaster at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and a newspaper journalist. Follow Lawson at Google+ and on Twitter.