Data Integration Glossary - Center of Financial Technologies, Inc.

This glossary describes common terms used in Data Integration and Data Warehouse areas.

Application Integration

The process of bringing data or functions from one application together with those of another application using real-time or near real-time communication. Integration involves the ability to use interfaces used by different applications.

Data cleansing

The process of correcting errors and removing inconsistencies before importing data into the warehouse.

Data Integration

The process of combining or linking two or more data sets from various sources to facilitate data sharing, promote effective data gathering and communication, and support overall information management activities in an organization.

Data Integrity

The degree or means by which the data in a database conform to specified data standards. For example, to maintain integrity, the numeric fields in a database will not accept alphabetic data.

Data Mapping

The process of assigning a source data element to a target data element.

Data Migration/Transformation

The process of converting data from one format to another. Data migration is necessary when an organization decides to use a new computing system or database management system that is incompatible with the current system. Typically, data migration is performed by a set of customized programs or scripts that automatically transfer the data. Data migration also sometimes refers to the process of moving data from one storage device to another.

Data Mining

The process of extracting previously unknown, valid and actionable information or relationships from large databases and using that information to make important decisions.

Data Modeling

A method used to define and analyze data requirements needed to support an organization’s business processes. Data modeling defines the relationships between data elements and structures. The data requirements are recorded as a conceptual data model with associated data definitions. Actual implementation of the conceptual model is called a logical data model. To implement one conceptual data model may require multiple logical data models.

Data Warehouse

A collection of databases designed to support management decision-making. The term “data warehousing” generally refers to combining a wide variety of databases across an entire organization. Development of a data warehouse includes development of systems to extract data from operating systems plus installation of a warehouse database system that provides users flexible access to the data.

Decision Support System (DSS)

A generic term used to refer to a computer system or software that supports data analysis, reporting and other processing capabilities to help an organization or enterprise make informed decisions.

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is the process of analyzing the structure and content of databases to identify redundant data that exists within and across enterprises. When a redundant data version is changed, that change must be reflected in all data versions to ensure that all data remains up to date. EAI ensures that only one copy of that data exists, shared by all who are authorized to use it.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) products are large, complex software packages developed by software vendors to carry out much of the back-office processing for large corporations. They include software packages for Supply Chain Management (SCM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Human Resource Management (HRM). Some of the major ERP vendors include SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft and Siebel.

Extract, Transform, Load (ETL)

The process of extracting data from source systems, transforming it into the required structure and then loading it into the data warehouse. ETL tools help this process.

Legacy System

An older computer system or application program that an agency continues to use. Since many legacy systems cannot meet the changing business processes of organizations, they present a significant challenge for data integration.

Metadata

Metadata is terminology or jargon, used as a business language to communicate a specific meaning. For example, accountants use a special jargon for accounting, while doctors and hospital staff use a different jargon to communicate a medical meaning. This meaning must be understood for effective communication. Metadata tags are used by XML to surround data content and identify the data meaning.

Normalization

Normalization is the process of moving data table columns so that all of the columns that depend on a primary key column are placed in the same table as that primary key. For example, all columns that are wholly dependent on “customer number” as a primary key in a CUSTOMER table (such as “customer name” and “customer account balance”) are moved into that table with the primary key.

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

A category of software tools that analyses data stored in a database. OLAP tools allow users to analyze different dimensions of multidimensional data. For example, it provides time-series and trend¬-analysis views. The chief component of OLAP is the OLAP server, which sits between a client and a database management system. The OLAP server understands how data is organized in the database.

Online Transaction Processing (OLTP)

A type of computer processing in which the computer responds immediately to user requests. Each request is considered to be a transaction. Automatic teller machines are examples of transaction processing. The opposite of transaction processing is batch processing, in which a batch of requests is stored and then executed all at one time. Transaction processing requires interaction with a user; batch processing can occur without a user being present.