One, enterprises have too many decisions to make. Two, it’s difficult to find success with complex data integration. Those are the two main excuses I hear these days, as enterprises move to the cloud. Whatever the justification, the lack of attention to data integration is beginning to cause some real damage.
So, what went wrong? Enterprises have so much coming at them that they don’t think about every approach and technology that they need to think about. Security, management, monitoring, and governance are getting the attention they need, but data integration has fallen off the radar screen.
A byproduct of this behavior? More data silos. We all know that data silos are bad, but we seem to be building more data silos—not only on premises but in the public cloud.
Data silos by themselves are not bad if they are integrated with other data silos. This means that as one silo is updated, the other silos are aware of the update and can immediately exchange information.
The idea is that you need a “single source of truth” for data, using an old Oracle phrase. A single record of a customer, inventory, sales, or other information you want to track.
But without a data integration strategy and technology, a single source of data truth is not possible. Systems become islands of automation unto themselves, and it doesn’t matter if they are in the public cloud or not.
The cloud makes many things better, but it makes data integration worse. Indeed, as you migrate applications and data to the cloud, as well as build new applications and databases, chances are you’re forgetting about data integration.
The result is a far-diminished value of the systems you use, because the data is redundant and out of sync. Enterprise IT should treat data as a single consistent resource that can span all systems and platforms, both cloud and noncloud. If you overlook this aspect, you won’t find the business value you’re seeking.