Open data

We Will Become More Open

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl4 Comments

Yesterday I read a post called Taking Stock Of DQ Predictions For 2011 by Clarke Patterson of Informatica Corporation. Informatica is a well established vendor within data integration, data quality and master data management. The post is based on post called Six Data Management Predictions for 2011 by Steve Sarsfield of Talend. Talend is an open source vendor within data integration, data quality and master data management.

One of the six predictions for 2011 is: Data will become more open.

Steves (open source based) take on this is:

“In the old days good quality reference data was an asset kept in the corporate lockbox. If you had a good reference table for common misspellings of parts, cities, or names for example, the mind set was to keep it close and away from falling into the wrong hands.  The data might have been sold for profit or simply not available.  Today, there really is no “wrong hands”.  Governments and corporations alike are seeing the societal benefits of sharing information. More reference data is there for the taking on the internet from sites like data.gov and geonames.org.  That trend will continue in 2011.  Perhaps we’ll even see some of the bigger players make announcements as to the availability of their data. Are you listening Google?”

Clarkes (propriety software based) take is as follows:

“As data becomes more open, data quality tools will need to be able to handle data from a greater number of sources used for a broader number of purposes.  Gone are the days of single domain data manipulation.  To excel in this new, open market, you’ll need a data quality tool that can profile, cleanse and monitor data regardless of domain, that is also locale-aware and has pre-built rules and reference data.”

I agree with both views which by the way are on each of The Two Sides To The IT Coin – Data Centric IT vs Process Centric IT as explained by Robin Bloor in another recent post on the blog by data integration vendor Pervasive Software.

Steves and Clarkes perspectives are also close to me as my 2011 to do list includes:

  • Involvement in a solution called iDQ (instant Data Quality). The solution is about how we can help system users doing data entry by adding some easy to use technology that explores the cloud for relevant data related to the entry being done.
  • Helping enhancing a hot MDM hub solution with further data quality and multi-domain capabilities.

Bookmark and Share

The Value of Free Address Data

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl1 Comment

In yesterdays blog post I wrote about Free and Open Sources of Reference Data. As mentioned we have had some discussions in my home country Denmark about fees for access to public sector data.

However since 2002 basic Danish public sector data about addresses has been free without a fee. This summer a report about the benefits from this practice was released. Link in Danish here.

I’ll quote the key findings:

  • The direct economic gains for the Danish community in the last five years 2005-2009 is approximately 471 million DKK (63 million EUR). The total cost until 2009 has been about 15 million DKK (2 million EUR).
  • Approximately 30% of the profits are made in the public sector and approximately 70% at the private actors.

I think this is a fine example of the win-win situation we’ll get when sharing data between public sector and private sector.

Bookmark and Share

Free and Open Sources of Reference Data

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl4 Comments

This Monday I mingled in a tweetjam organized by the open source data integration vendor Talend.

One of the questions discussed was: Are free and open sources of reference data becoming more important in your projects?

When talking “free and open“, not at least in the open source realm, we can’t avoid talking about “free for a fee”. Some sources of open data like Geonames are free as in “free beer”. Other data comes with a fee. In my home country Denmark we have had some discussions about the reasoning in that the government likes to put a fee on mandatory collected data and I have observed similar considerations in our close neighbor country Sweden (By the way: The picture of a bridge that Talend uses a lot like on top of home page here looks like the bridge between Denmark and Sweden).

One challenge I have met over and over again in using free (maybe for a fee) and open data in data integration and data quality improvement is the cost of conformity. When using open government data there may, apart from the pricing, be a lot of differences between the countries in formats, coverage and so on. I think there is a great potential in delivering conformed data from many different sources for specific purposes.

Bookmark and Share

Linked Data Quality

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl4 Comments

The concept of linked data within the semantic web is in my eyes a huge opportunity for getting data and information quality improvement done.

The premises for that is described on the page Data Quality 3.0.

Until now data quality has been largely defined as: Fit for purpose of use.

The problem however is that most data – not at least master data – have multiple uses.

My thesis is that there is a breakeven point when including more and more purposes where it will be less cumbersome to reflect the real world object rather than trying to align fitness for all known purposes.

If we look at the different types of master data and what possibilities that may arise from linked data, this is what initially comes to my mind:

Location master data

Location data has been some of the data types that have been used the most already on the web. Linking a hotel, a company, a house for sale and so on to a map is an immediate visual feature appealing to most people. Many databases around however have poor location data as for example inadequate postal addresses. The demand for making these data “mappable” will increase to near unavoidable, but fortunately the services for doing so with linked data will help.

Hopefully increased open government data will help solve the data supply issue here.

Party master data

Linking party master data to external data sources is not new at all, but unfortunately not as widespread as it could be. The main obstacle until now has been smooth integration into business processes.

Having linked data describing real world entities on the web will make this game a whole lot easier.

Actually I’m working on implementations in this field right now.

Product master data

Traditionally the external data sources available for describing product master data has been few – and hard to find. But surely, at lot of data is already out there waiting to be found, categorized, matched and linked.

Bookmark and Share

Sharing data is key to a single version of the truth

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl10 Comments

This post is involved in a good-natured contest (i.e., a blog-bout) with two additional bloggers:  Charles Blyth and Jim Harris. Our contest is a Blogging Olympics of sorts, with the Great Britain, United States and Denmark competing for the Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals in an event we are calling “Three Single Versions of a Shared Version of the Truth.”

Please take the time to read all three posts and then vote for who you think has won the debate (see poll below). Thanks!

My take

According to Wikipedia data may be of high quality in two alternative ways:

  • Either they are fit for their intended uses
  • Or they correctly represent the real-world construct to which they refer

In my eyes the term “single version of the truth” relates best to the real-world way of data being of high quality while “shared version of the truth” relates best to the hard work of making data fit for multiple intended uses of shared data in the enterprise.

My thesis is that there is a break even point when including more and more purposes where it will be less cumbersome to reflect the real world object rather than trying to align all known purposes.  

The map analogy

In search for this truth we will go on a little journey around the world.

For a journey we need a map.

Traditionally we have the challenge that the real-world being the planet Earth is round (3 dimensions) but a map shows a flat world (2 dimensions). If a map shows a limited part of the world the difference doesn’t matter that much. This is similar to fitting the purpose of use in a single business unit.

MercatorIf the map shows the whole world we may have all kind of different projections offering different kind of views on the world having some advantages and disadvantages. A classic world map is the rectangle where Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Svalbard, Siberia and Antarctica are presented much larger than in the real-world if compared to regions closer to equator. This is similar to the problems in fulfilling multiple uses embracing all business units in an enterprise.

Today we have new technology coming to the rescue. If you go into Google Earth the world indeed looks round and you may have any high altitude view of a apparently round world. If you go closer the map tends to be more and more flat. My guess is that the solutions to fit the multiple uses conondrum will be offered from the cloud.  

Exploiting rich external reference data

But Google Earth offers more than powerfull technolgy. The maps are connected with rich information on places, streets, companies and so on obtained from multiple sources – and also some crowdsourced photos not always placed with accuracy. Even if external reference data is not “the truth” these data, if used by more and more users (one instance, multiple tenants), will tend to be closer to “the truth” than any data collected and maintained solely in a single enterprise.

Shared data makes fit for pupose information

You may divide the data held by an enterprise into 3 pots:

  • Global data that is not unique to operations in your enterprise but shared with other enterprises in the same industry (e.g. product reference data) and eventually the whole world (e.g. business partner data and location data). Here “shared data in the cloud” will make your “single version of the truth” easier and closer to the real world.
  • Bilateral data concerning business partner transactions and related master data. If you for example buy a spare part then also “share the describing data” making your “single version of the truth” easier and more accurate.    
  • Private data that is unique to operations in your enterprise. This may be a “single version of the truth” that you find superior to what others have found, data supporting internal business rules that make your company more competitive and data referring to internal events.

While private and then next bilateral data makes up the largest amount of data held by an enterprise it is often seen that it is data that could be global that have the most obvious data quality issues like duplicated, missing, incorrect and outdated party master data information.

Here “a global or bilateral shared version of the truth” helps approaching “a single version of the truth” to be shared in your enterprise. This way accurate raw data may be consumed as valuable information in a given context at once when needed.  

Call to action

If not done already, please take the time to read posts from fellow bloggers Charles Blyth and Jim Harris and then vote for who you think has won the debate. A link to the same poll is provided on all three blogs. Therefore, wherever you choose to cast your vote, you will be able to view an accurate tally of the current totals.

The poll will remain open for one week, closing at midnight on 19th November so that the “medal ceremony” can be conducted via Twitter on Friday, 20th November. Additionally, please share your thoughts and perspectives on this debate by posting a comment below.  Your comment may be copied (with full attribution) into the comments section of all of the blogs involved in this debate.

Vote here.

Bookmark and Share

Government says so

Henrik Gabs Liliendahl3 Comments

Capitol_Building_Full_ViewExternal reference data are going to play an increasing role in data quality improvement and a recent trend around the world helps a lot: Governments are unlocking their data stores.

Some available initiatives in English are the US data.gov and the UK “show us a better way”.

Today I attended a “Workshop on the use of public data in the private sector” arranged by the Danish National IT and Telecom Agency as part of the similar initiative in my home country.cristiansborg

The initiatives around the world are a bit different in focus areas and on which data to be released depending on the administrative traditions and local privacy policies.

As an organisation you may integrate with such public reference data either directly or through services from private vendors who add value by reformatting, merging, enriching and bundling with other services. One add on service on the international scene will be supplying consistency – as far as possible – between the datasets from each country.

One way or the other public reference data will become a part of the data architecture in most organisations. Applications in the cloud will probably be (actually are) first movers in this field.

Public reference data will bring operational databases and data warehouses closer to that “one version of the truth” that we talk so much about but have so much trouble achieving and even define. Now some of the trouble can be solved by: Government says so.

Bookmark and Share