TICs
TICs
The purpose of the Analyze Phase is to build a solid foundation for project scope through a
deliberate determination of the business drivers, requirements, and priorities that will form
the basis of the project design and development.
Once the business case for a data integration or business intelligence solution is accepted
and key stakeholders are identified, the process of detailing and prioritizing objectives and
requirements can begin - with the ultimate goal of defining project scope and, if appropriate,
a detailed roadmap for major project stages.
configuration recommendations is designed. The environments and strategies for the entire
development process are defined. The strategies include development standards, quality
assurance, change control processes and metadata strategy. It is critical that the architecture
decisions made during this phase are guided by an understanding of the business needs. As
Data Integration architectures become more real-time and mission critical, good architecture
decisions will ensure the success of the overall effort. This phase should culminate in the
implementation of the hardware and software that will allow the Design Phase and the Build
The Design phase lays the foundation for the upcoming Build phase. In the Design phase, all
data models are developed, source systems are analyzed and physical databases are
designed. The presentation layer is designed and a prototype constructed. Each task, if done
thoroughly, enables the data integration solution to perform properly and provides an
infrastructure that allows for growth and change.
Each task in the Design phase provides the functional architecture for the development
process. The design of target data store may include, data warehouses and data marts, star
schemas, web services, message queues or custom databases to drive specific applications
or effect a data migration.
The Build Phase uses the design work completed in the Architect Phase and the Design
Phase as inputs to physically create the data integration solution including data quality and
data transformation development efforts.
At this point, the project scope, plan, and business requirements defined in the Manage
Phase should be re-evaluated to ensure that the project can deliver the appropriate value at
an appropriate time.
data transformation development efforts.
At this point, the project scope, plan, and business requirements defined in the Manage
Phase should be re-evaluated to ensure that the project can deliver the appropriate value at
an appropriate time.
The Test phase includes the full design of testing plans and infrastructure as well as
comprehensive system-wide verification procedures. The System Test is conducted after all
elements of the system have been integrated into the test environment. It includes a
number of detailed technically-oriented verifications that are managed as processes by the
technical team with primarily technical criteria for acceptance. UAT is a detailed user-
oriented set of verifications with User Acceptance as the objective. It is typically managed by
end-users with participation from the technical team. A final step in the Test Phase activities
is related to tuning system performance.
to ensure that crucial steps are not missed in the production cut over.
Metadata, which is the cornerstone of any data integration solution, should play an integral
role in the documentation and training rollout to users. Not only is metadata critical to the
system operating smoothly by anticipating operational considerations such as
hardware/software upgrades, increased data volumes and network constraints before they
occur and planning for their resolution.
The project team enables ongoing suport by providing documentation and by conducting