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MDM Question...

Former Member
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I'm a newbie to the MDM and I've a question on it.

As per my understanding, MDM maintains the Master Data at one central repository instead of having them at different places.

Lets say I've three systems SAP and Siebel and one legacy system. And the some master data is in SAP and some in Siebel and some in legacy system.

So, If we have MDM, we would combine all these master data from 3 systems and put that in one place. My question is, even after putting the data in MDM, still are we gonna have master data in those applications? or We dont maintain the master data in those systems anymore?

If its going to be only in MDM, then for each transaction in SAP or siebel or legacy system, it has to get the Master data from MDM before creating transactional data. Is it not a network overhead and doesnt it slowdown creating the transactions?

If its also going to be in the systems even after MDM implementation then what advantage we get from using MDM?

Any thoughts and/or real time experiences?

Thanks,

Angela

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi Angela ,

Juan has explained the 3 scenario's very well . I will try to answer in simple way with recommended scenario ( central master data management) to clarify your questions .

Q - even after putting the data in MDM, still are we gonna have master data in those applications? or We dont maintain the master data in those systems anymore?

Ans - Yes , all 2 systems will have master data but will not maintain it . master data will be maintained centrally in MDM and send to these 3 systems as master data is required to perform certain things in these 3 systems .

Q - If its going to be only in MDM, then for each transaction in SAP or siebel or legacy system, it has to get the Master data from MDM before creating transactional data. Is it not a network overhead and doesnt it slowdown creating the transactions?

Ans - The Master data will be sent to these 3 systems after creating/changing it in MDM . So not much network traffic .

Q - If its also going to be in the systems even after MDM implementation then what advantage we get from using MDM?

Ans - There are many advantages . (a) The Master data will be accurate in all systems as its maintained in 1 place only . (b) Less time spend in master data maintenance (only 1 , compared to 3 systems ). (c) The Management will have accurate reports because of accurate master data .

Warm Regards .

Annika .

Answers (2)

Answers (2)

Former Member
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Hi Angela Ashburn,

Well, as you understand, MDM is single point of truth for all the system.

Here, we do not need to access very time while creating transactional data in SAP R/3 or any System.Moreover, that is not the concept of SAP MDM.

MDM is Data Management m/c means single point of truth. MDM has no direct communication between SAP R/3 and Siebel. If we want communicate these for the data From or To MDM we have to use the middleware in between.

What we do actually in real time is.

First, we do get the data from SAP, Siebel, or Legacy System to <b>SAP MDM</b>.

And, we do Consolidate the data in <b>SAP MDM</b>, which we had from different system.

Then, we do Harmonization the data to all the systems using schedule or batch process from <b>SAP MDM</b>.

Therefore, there is no network load on any system.

Good link for your Query

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_mdm300/helpdata/EN/b8/e3034105d0f223e10000000a155106/content.htm

Please mark this as very useful.

Sincerely,

Bala

Message was edited by: Bala Subbaiah Gorla

Former Member
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Hi Angela,

The answer to your question will strongly depend on the IT policy of the corporation where MDM is being implemented:

The idea in MDM is not necessarily to have your complete master data stored and maintained in one single system.

The best way to get a feeling about added value of MDM is described by the words of an old professor I had at university: "The important is not to have every bit of information in a single place,... but rather to know

where it is!" and I would personally add "how accurate

it is!".

There are actually three main strategies in data unification. The use of one or the other will depend mainly on the corporate practices for IT where MDM is being implemented.

  • Master data harmonization: here the master data is copied from each client system into MDM. A matching needed in order to identify duplicates, and build the MDM translation tables that will allow to know where the data is, and which records correspond to the same real "object" in your different systems (Key Mapping Tables). In that case each single system just works as before, and the added value of MDM is that you know EXACTLY where you data is, and how many "real objects" you have across your systems.

  • Master data consolidation: is one step further... here you perform first a harmonization (as above), consolidate the entries on global fields, and re-distribute the data to the original systems. In that scenario NO DATA is created in MDM. The added value is related to the fact that data will be consistent across the corporation. You may imagine that the difficulty here is to figure out which information should "win" in conflict cases. Here you need a good cleansing tool, with relevant matching strategies.

  • Central master data management: is the final leap. Here you go again one step further, and you start creating centrally data in MDM, and distribute it to the different client systems.

What we actually see is that customers that are very much worried with the question "who is the master of the data?" will tend to implement the first two scenarios. Customers with very centralized policies will tend to look for the third scenario.

Hope that helps,

warm regards jc