Database integration combines and consolidates information from various sources, including databases, cloud storage, data warehouses, on-prem hardware storage, and more. This approach makes data accessible across applications, departments, and stakeholders without the risk of data loss or duplication.
Benefits of Database Integration
Data integration platforms are an efficient approach to data utilization and storage. Rather than replicating data across locations or environments, the integration database serves as a single source of truth.
The ability to easily access data in a single location saves end-users time and effort and enables cross-departmental collaboration. Data easily accessed, analyzed, and implemented saves time, money, and effort. All end users, departments, and locations can be sure they view the same data and make business decisions according to the same information.
Accessible data is also powerful data. Moving at the speed of business means making intelligent decisions based on relevant, current information. Database continuous integration ensures that as data is updated in various locations, the integration location – the data set accessed company-wide – keeps pace.
A centralized location enables organizations to manage enterprise data more effectively and gain more control. It also ensures peace of mind by simplifying national and global operating standards, compliance, and governance requirements.
In the case of mergers, acquisitions, reorganization, or consolidation, following a database integration process brings data from disparate sources into a unified view. Accompanying tools will support data consolidation by cleaning, transforming, and loading the data sets into a specified target system. No matter where data is stored – legacy systems, cloud databases, on-prem infrastructure – it will be pulled out of silos and brought into view.
How to Unify Data with Database Integration
As with any implementation, the data integration process requires planning and foresight to be effective. Ensure you take the time to understand your environment and goals before embarking on the database integration journey.
Identify the Data Sources
To start, identify the data sources you’d like to integrate. This may include cloud servers, on-prem storage, data warehouses, and legacy systems. If you have experienced a merger or acquisition, you may have data to pull from organizations you’ve brought into the fold. Consider customer data systems such as CRMs and marketing tools, as integrating this data will enable you to generate intelligence from buyer and lead relationships.
Estimate the Size of Your Data Extraction
Understanding the full scope of your data integration project is crucial before starting down the unification path. Then, you will need to determine how to connect to each of your data sources. Can you leverage APIs to connect and pull from these sources, or will it require you to build a custom integration?
Incorporate a Robust Data Integration Platform
One of the most useful data integration concepts is that of a robust data integration tool to facilitate cleansing, validation, and integration. A data integration platform will simplify integration and manage data pipelines for event-based ingestion from their source. Reconciliation and recovery schemes are crucial, as are monitoring, control, and error handling.
The support of an enterprise-class platform will make integrating and maintaining data much simpler and more reliable so that your organization can access, parse, and leverage data with business intelligence (BI) tools and insights.
