Phase Two: Manage

There are very few cases in which a piece of data serves its purpose to the enterprise simply by being input into a system. Usually there are multiple functional areas downstream that need to refer to the data value as well. Sometimes a specific functional area needs to know of that value as soon as possible, while in other cases the need is less urgent.

In many environments, this coordination is handled through human means with employees extracting and/or re-keying data values into various interfaces, deriving business process from the use of unmanaged spreadsheets, or maintaining an independent copy of reference and transactional data. In any case, significant risk is posed to the integrity of that data through human error, breach of internal controls, and inefficiency of process.

Server and storage hardware can be great enablers of efficient data management, but they alone cannot deliver the goods. The connections between those end points, how the physical data is moved and managed, and the true needs of the business all determine how technology can do its part.

From Stonebridge’s perspective, data management begins and ends with architecture. Without an overall plan of how data is managed once within the “four walls,” the enterprise is reduced to an endless series of point solutions. These steps toward integration, while complex, should be modeled by the business process needs rather than from database to-database.

Stonebridge advocates the following best practices in Data Management:

• Define the “data service level” expected by downstream systems and consumers.

• Use the “business” meaning of data as common ground between systems and processes.

• Insulate business processes from complexity and changes occurring in the underlying database systems.

• Address data movement through “right time” integration standards.

• Define data domain ownership to reduce conflict.

Return to the Stonebridge Approach.