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If you've been reading my blog over the past year or so you'll have noticed that two things I've started to become really interested in are Master Data Management (MDM) and SQL Server Data Services (SSDS). The interest in SSDS, a cloud-based service in which an organisation can host their data, is a natural progression from my day job of the last ...

News just in… Microsoft have purchased Zoomix, a data quality software vendor. From the press release: Zoomix will contribute a critical layer of data improvement to Microsoft's SQL Server Data Platform Interesting stuff. One would think this will sit fairly and squarely within SSIS given that SSIS will be shipping Data Profiling ...

I have blogged a little bit about ADO.Net Data Services (aka Astoria) and Microsoft MDM of late and once briefly mentioned the two in the same breath. As I have gotten to know a bit more about these two technologies I have been thinking more about how they might one day work together and I'm going to outline those thoughts in this blog. Before I ...

No doubt you've heard today's news about Microsoft's attempted takeover of Yahoo. Being a data integration guy as I am my interest isn't sparked by talk of share dealings, boardroom swaggering or financial terms; I want to know how Microsoft plan to integrate the two companies' customer lists and employee org charts. This will be no mean feat. I ...

As I get more and more embroiled in the Master Data Management (MDM) discipline I'm forming nascent opinions on what constitutes MDM, and how best to implement an MDM strategy. A common question raised about this discipline is whether your MDM system should be for supporting operational systems (e.g. running your customer-facing applications) or ...

Its a while since I spoke about Analysis Services on here but today I was getting back into the SSAS groove in a couple of ways.   Firstly, I received an email from Microsoft Connect in reply to one of my old suggestions which I opened back in June 2006. The submission went something like this: It would be nice to have ''dynamic'' ...

The NFL came to the UK the other week, when the New York Dreadnoughts took on the Miami Flange Brackets at the “Wembley Bowl” in London (England).  Apparently one million people applied for tickets to see 120 fat men rolling around in the mud, a claim not quite backed up by the 9000 empty seats in the stadium.  Still, it was ...

I just read a really interesting post that sparked me off on a train of thought that I just had to share. Joe McKendrick writes an SOA blog for ZDNet (amongst other things) and often poses some interesting questions or disseminates some key nuggets of thought from the SOA blogosphere. One of his recent posts talks about how Pfizer have bridged ...

This week The Galloping Data Architect and I are attending the Gartner MDM conference in Hollywood, Florida. As the week has gone on I've been making a note of quotes that I hear or conclusions that I draw myself whilst listening to the various speakers that feel pertinent to me based on my own MDM experiences over the past two years. I thought it ...

I was recently asked by a colleague about my opinions on unbalanced (sometimes called ragged) versus balanced hierarchies in data modelling. Other people have described the differences between unbalanced and balanced hierarchies before me so instead of me trying to explain them I'll point you here instead for an explanation. Here are ...