Eight Styles of Data Integration

A White Paper

WebFOCUS iWay Software Omni

Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary

2 Eight Styles of Data Integration

1 Traditional Data Warehouse
2 Real-Time Data Warehouse
3 Operational Data Access
4 Data Virtualization
5 Process Integration
6 Search Technology
7 Data Access via Web Services and Native APIs
8 Cloud Data

18 Conclusion
18 About Information Builders
Executive Summary

Most people assume that the starting point for any data integration or business intelligence (BI)
project is a data warehouse. While data warehouses are important for many types of initiatives, they
aren’t always necessary. Building a data warehouse can dramatically increase the cost of a project,
while reducing the value, relevance, and timeliness of enterprise information. Many projects can
benefit just as much – or perhaps even more so – from alternate data integration scenarios.

Data warehouses themselves are not the issue. Problems arise when a data warehouse is viewed
as the only solution to a data integration or BI deployment, or there is an expectation that simply
building a data warehouse will address a specific information need. Data warehouses should not
be implemented without a clear understanding of the business challenges they will solve.

If you are a project, business, and IT manager with responsibility for data integration or BI activities,
you need to carefully research potential data access architectures and understand the various
techniques for accessing data, so you can devise the best method for leveraging your data within
the scope of your project.

In this paper, we’ll highlight eight proven integration strategies, and use real-world examples to
demonstrate the high-value, high-return data access options that are available to you. You’ll learn
about data warehouses, as well as other methods for making relevant, timely information available
to your business users, systems, and processes. These eight ways to integrate and access data – all
supported by Information Builders market-leading intelligence, integration, and integrity solutions
– can be applied to effectively solve various business problems:

1 A traditional data warehouse, periodically refreshed from production data sources

2 A real-time data warehouse, constantly updated by trickle-feeding data from production

data sources

3 Operational data access, for a real-time view of business activity from operational data
and applications

4 Data virtualization, which provides real-time aggregation of corporate data across

multiple sources

5 Process integration, which delivers real-time information based on a business event or as

part of a business process

6 Search technology, to rapidly scan indexed content, creating Google-style results from data
sources throughout the enterprise

7 Web services and native APIs, which can expose or extract data from multiple sources,
irrespective of underlying operating systems, applications, or databases

8 Cloud data, to optimize the way cloud-based information is accessed and leveraged

1 Information Builders
Eight Styles of Data Integration

1 Traditional Data Warehouse

Data warehouses are important for many types of integration and BI projects, particularly when
analytic systems are involved. Data is gathered from multiple sources to create an aggregated
repository of information. Data can be extracted from production sources as it is generated (real-
time information), or in periodic stages (latent information), making it simpler and more efficient
than accessing each system separately.

A data warehouse takes data from one or more sources on a scheduled

(i.e. daily, weekly, monthly) basis.

There are many valid reasons for building a data warehouse, including:
■■ To reduce overhead on a transaction processing system or production application by staging
data to a centralized database
■■ To reduce the complexity of the data and put it in a form that is suitable for reporting or
other purposes
■■ To maintain and retrieve historical data that is no longer accessible in operational applications

For example, Moneris Solutions, Canada’s leading payment processor, created a data warehouse
that allows merchants to view daily and historical sales information. Developers used Information

2 Eight Styles of Data Integration

 Builders’ iWay data integration technology to extract data from point-of-sale and transactional card
systems located in three data centers, and load it into a Microsoft SQL Server-based data warehouse.

Moneris maintains three months worth of daily transactions and 24 months of summary data in its
data warehouse, which is known as Merchant Direct and is dimensionally modeled to accelerate
reporting and analysis. The company downloads about five million rows of new transactional
information into the warehouse each day to support a merchant base of more than 300,000
customers. It’s a massive data access, summarization, and delivery exercise, and a data warehouse
is an ideal way to supply the information that customers need. These merchants use Information
Builders’ WebFOCUS BI and analytics platform to run parameterized reports such as the daily
authorization logs, monthly merchant statements, and daily corporate summaries, and to create
reports about individual stores and roll up summary information to reflect larger operations.

Pro Tip: Data Quality

Regardless of the style of integration used, data quality should always play an
integral role in the implementation. Data quality tools, such as the iWay Integrity
Suite, can be called seamlessly by any data integration process to cleanse, verify,
standardize, and enrich data. With iWay, clean data is complete, verifiable, and
consistent – qualities that are critical when applications consume that data. For
more information, read our white paper, The Real Cost of Bad Data: Six Simple
Steps To Address Data Quality Issues.

2 Real-Time Data Warehouse

While refreshing the Merchant Direct data warehouse once each day works fine for Moneris’
customers, some businesses require more current data. For example, customer service reps
often need up-to-date information about those who call in for assistance. Have you ever been
transferred from one attendant to another because the customer service rep didn’t have the
right information at his or her fingertips? Many of these transfers occur because reps can’t
access current data, especially when multiple products and services are involved. For example,
a telecommunications company might offer landline phone services, wireless phone services,
internet services, and TV services, requiring reps to look in many different places to fully
understand a customer’s total relationship with the company.

Some companies try to solve this problem by migrating customer data from multiple systems
into a central data warehouse, which customer support reps can query for insight about customer
activities. But keeping the information current is a challenge. You might call to ask a question
about your cell phone plan, and a few minutes later send a message requesting information
about a new feature the rep just told you about. How long will it take the company to update your
customer records in the data warehouse so all the reps can see?

3 Information Builders
A North American telecommunications company faced a similar challenge. The firm created a data
warehouse that accumulates data from five different operational sources each night. Data was
moved into the warehouse in batch mode at the end of each day. This architecture was adequate
for most customer inquiries, except for cases where a customer issue involved several different
calls or e-mail messages during the course of a day. These inquiries sometimes entailed accessing
data from several different operational systems. To get the information, customer support reps
had to transfer phone calls to other reps, delaying call resolutions and increasing support costs.

To resolve the situation, this telecommunications company used iWay integration technology to
tricklefeed the data warehouse – meaning new records are added right away. Today, as soon as
new data is entered into any one of these five operational systems, it is extracted, transformed,
and loaded into a real-time repository that includes information about customer accounts,
invoices, service orders, products, support histories, and much more. Call center representatives
always have up-to-the-minute information about customer accounts and inquiries, and customers
no longer get passed from one division to another.

In this scenario, the data warehouse is updated simultaneously with operational systems, one
record at a time.

Is this a complicated architecture? Not if you have the right integration tools. iWay listens for
transactions as they occur within each of the operational systems, then makes corresponding
updates to the real-time data warehouse, transposing information into a common format along
the way. As a result, updates to any of the operational systems are reflected in the data warehouse
within five minutes of any customer interaction, regardless of which venue the customer uses
to contact the company. The telecommunications company also used WebFOCUS to create a
business intelligence portal for displaying the data – a real-time window that enables reps to stay
up-to-date on the history of each account.

4 Eight Styles of Data Integration

Pro Tip: Big Data
When it comes to data integration, one size does not fit all. Big data repositories are
particularly suited for high volumes of unstructured data. However, depending on the
use case, a traditional RDBMS may be fine as well. The best approach is to examine
your data storage needs and then choose the technology – not the other way around.
For more information, read our white paper, Breaking Big: When Big Data Goes Bad.

3 Operational Data Access

As we’ve seen, a data warehouse is generally used for a variety of projects, including analytical BI
systems. Data warehouses give users an excellent view of past business events and entities, but
not of current, ongoing business processes. Operational business intelligence systems, by contrast,
give users a real-time view of business events as they occur, such as shipping orders to customers,
routing parts through an assembly line, or sending trouble tickets to customer service reps.

Integration technology is important to both operational and analytic BI systems, but in different
ways. Analytical BI applications rely on extract, transform, and load (ETL) tools to keep a data
warehouse current, perhaps once a day or once a week. Operational BI applications generally get
their information from an automated workflow process or directly from production systems. There
is less latency between when an event occurs and when the BI system is aware of that event,
putting business users in touch with timelier information.

Reports are generated directly from the

operational system (or sometimes an exact
copy of the operational system).

5 Information Builders
 For example, RBC Royal Bank provides real-time loan status information to its asset-based lending
(ABL) customers. Asset-based lending is a flexible way of providing fast-growing or highly
leveraged companies with working capital. The lending institution approves revolving lines of
credit secured by accounts receivable and inventory. The major difference between asset-based
lending and traditional commercial lending is control; lenders must continually assess the makeup
and status of each borrower’s collateral. This enables them to maximize the borrower’s margin
availability based on the underlying value of its current assets.

To make its ABL calculations, RBC considers more than a million invoices each month, along
with lengthy inventory reports. They use iWay solutions to translate this steady stream of data
into meaningful information that can be directly input to the ABL reporting system. This gives
customers a real-time view of the status of their loans – up to the millisecond. If the operations
group updates the data, it is posted immediately, so the customer always obtains the latest
information.

Thanks to this real-time reporting architecture, RBC’s asset-based lending clients can view their
borrowing base position, outstanding loan balances, collateral composition, and listings of
ineligible accounts through a secured and encrypted website.

Pro Tip: The Real-Time Advantage

Within each style of integration, it is possible to integrate data with varying degrees
of latency. The benefit of real-time information is obvious. The information you use
will never be outdated. There is nothing inherently wrong with batch (ETL) or other
data integration methods with higher latencies. In fact, some use cases may require
those methods. However, if you have the flexibility of choosing latencies, always
go with real-time. It is much harder to migrate to real-time after you’ve chosen an
integration technology that doesn’t support it.

4 Data Virtualization
When an operational BI application accesses multiple sources of information, it is typically referred
to as data virtualization or enterprise information integration (EII). This architecture enables BI
systems to look across multiple business applications and accept events from multiple sources,
such as those supporting customer relationships, the supply chain, and sales transactions. These
federated queries can propagate information from any source – real-time ERP transactions,
warehoused data, and business-to-business systems – and deliver it to line managers, executives,
or automated business processes.

Data virtualization refers to the real-time aggregation of corporate data across multiple data
sources. It presents distributed data as if it exists in a single location. This distinguishes it from
other types of data access technologies, since data is not permanently moved or replicated into a
new location or database. The source data remains intact.

6 Eight Styles of Data Integration

Enterprise Information Integration

Data virtualization combines data from several sources, which can include
operational systems and data warehouses.

A major Canadian airline used this architecture to create a BI application that helps maintenance
workers identify deviations, such as aircraft maintenance issues, including tracking parts for repairs.
Previously, even trivial maintenance issues such as a faulty seatback table or a torn seat cushion
prevented the airline from selling those seats on its flights, reducing revenue and profitability.
However, maintenance workers weren’t always notified in time, since the information the airline
needed to expedite these repairs was distributed across three different applications. The airline
needed real-time information to service these planes between flights.

At first glance, it might seem that integrating data from the three different applications into a
staged data warehouse would satisfy the requirements. After carefully analyzing the requirements,
the airline realized it could generate a federated query to access data from all of these sources
simultaneously. They didn’t need to build a warehouse to maintain this information.

Developers used WebFOCUS to build a report that combines data from three operational sources:
■■ The primary maintenance system, which holds information about seat and other problems on
the plane
■■ The parts inventory system, which holds information about the location of the necessary
replacement parts
■■ The plane routing system, which holds scheduling information

This single report informs maintenance workers about which planes need which parts in which
locations, enabling them to fix each problem as soon as possible.

Based on this report, the airline can attend to maintenance problems in a timely fashion, increasing
seat sales and improving profitability. Maintenance personnel use WebFOCUS to list all the devia-

7 Information Builders
 tions requiring attention. They can generate standard or parameterized reports that list the type,
location, and destination of each affected plane, along with a catalog of available parts. This
federated system not only makes it easy to identify the required parts, it has become an important
performance management tool for monitoring the activities of each maintenance crew, such as
their success identifying, classifying, and closing deviations.

Pro Tip: Data Governance

Each style of integration requires coordination with the users who will be
consuming the data. Technology alone can’t solve the problems of data ownership,
security, or data definitions. Technologies can, however, make the process much
easier. Front-end tools designed for data stewards and business users are highly
intuitive and graphically-driven. They enable tasks like data remediation, profiling,
or consolidated single views of data entities. Empower users and developers with
the right tools to facilitate data governance and information management. For more
information, read our white paper, Seven Steps to Effective Data Governance.

5 Process Integration
While users querying a database or running a report typically initiate analytical BI systems, the
business process itself triggers process-driven systems. For example, when an order entry system
receives an order, or a manufacturing process updates a bill of materials, these events might notify
other applications within the enterprise. In some cases, users are asked to supply input, perhaps to
correlate events with data obtained from other parts of a business process. In other cases, there is
no user input involved.

iWay is a key technology in these scenarios, because it enables applications to listen for events,
detect them, propagate them, and determine which actions to take according to conditions that
have been determined in advance. Setting up triggers and alerts enables a process to interface
with transaction systems and be triggered by events occurring in those systems. You might set
up a trigger to send a message when conditions reach a predefined threshold, such as when
inventory falls below a certain level or new sales figures are available.

There are three basic categories of process integration:

■■ Real-time alerts
■■ Process-driven BI
■■ Transactional integration

In all three cases, the application acquires data before it ever gets loaded into a database.

8 Eight Styles of Data Integration

Data is accessed as the business event occurs, and is delivered even before
it enters a database. Delivery targets can be any device (computer, phone,
or mobile device), or even another part of a process.

For example, let’s say a customer orders 50 widgets through your online store. A BI application
might send a real-time alert to verify that there is enough stock on hand to fill that order. A process-
driven BI application not only checks the inventory, but also makes a decision to replenish it by
sending a message to the supplier. Transaction integration is similar, but in this case a database
transaction triggers the event. In other words, simply committing the order to the database triggers
an alert to verify the stock on hand, along with a message to the supplier to replenish the inventory.

All three scenarios are closely related, since they involve delivering real-time information based
on a business event or as part of a business process. Messages are generated, monitored, and
interpreted so that applications can take the necessary actions.

Sometimes, this type of integration scenario is referred to as business activity monitoring (BAM).
But whatever term is used, it involves monitoring events related to business processes like
EDI transactions, message bus activity, FTP activity, e-mail activity, database transactions, and
application updates. Very few business intelligence products can monitor and interpret these real-
time events. WebFOCUS is an exception, thanks in part to its close relationship with iWay.

Consider IPC, the largest group purchasing organization for independent pharmacies in the
United States. In 2006, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that
drug wholesalers must track the pedigree of all pharmaceutical products dispensed in retail
pharmacies, IPC had to set up a real-time environment to track each bottle of drugs that passes
through its warehouses.

9 Information Builders
 IPC used iWay to track the information and update the associated information systems. Now, when
pharmaceutical wholesalers send product data to IPC, the drug-tracking system automatically
ties it to a purchase order. iWay matches the purchase order with a shipping notice, then sends
back an e-mail confirmation of the transaction. After the wholesaler verifies that the correct
manufacturer is listed, iWay updates the pharmaceutical database as well. Thanks to this
automated business flow, IPC knows the exact pedigrees of the drugs that it has purchased before
the products even arrive at the shipping dock. In turn, they are able to provide this information to
their individual pharmacies, fulfilling the FDA requirement.

IPC plans to use WebFOCUS to expand its operational reporting capabilities, creating reports to
drill down into pharmaceutical deliveries by region, as well as to provide inventory summaries to
individual pharmacies. Now that iWay is monitoring its business processes, current order activity,
shipping status, and inventory levels are always listed in these reports.

Many state and local governments also rely on process integration to facilitate collaboration
among agencies. For example, the New York City Department of Health (DoH) has developed a
first response system to help hospitals, emergency workers, and the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention to proactively monitor the outbreak of diseases. Nearly three dozen New York
hospitals routinely feed patient data to the DoH, which uses iWay and WebFOCUS to combine
and analyze the information. There’s no time to put the data into a traditional data warehouse,
let alone expect healthcare workers to go looking for it. These are real-time problems and
they demand a real-time solution. The same data-sharing partnership applies to the city’s
911 emergency system. As information comes in from both sources, the DoH uses business
intelligence tools to spot trends that indicate a disease cluster in specific neighborhoods, then
immediately sends messages to the appropriate authorities.

Pro Tip: Integrating Data and Applications

Data integration and application integration are separate disciplines that are now
converging. Products like the iWay Integration Suite allow developers to seamlessly
combine data with custom business process flows, regardless of whether the source
is an application or a standalone data source. This consolidation allows for hybrid
use cases that leverage both. Equally, services such as data quality or master data
management can be applied across the board uniformly as well.

6 Search Technology
Everybody is familiar with the convenience and far-reaching capabilities of search technology.
But few companies have learned how powerful this technology can be in the context of BI
applications. The problem is that search engines are designed to index and track web pages, not
necessarily database transactions. Enter the iWay Enterprise Index, which taps into these streams
of information, transforms them into a usable format, and prepares them to be searched by end
users. This unleashes information that was previously locked up in proprietary information systems
– no data warehouse required.

10 Eight Styles of Data Integration

The iWay Enterprise Index powers WebFOCUS Magnify, which enables users to search dynamic
business intelligence content in addition to structured and unstructured data sources. It rapidly
scans indexed content to create Google-style results from data sources throughout the enterprise.
From a standard search page, you can follow links to execute reports and access information.

An enriched version of each transaction is sent to a search engine in HTML format, in concert with
the operational system. Subsequent searches link transactions to reports that will further reveal
necessary information.

Why is this unique? The real breakthrough is in its scope. Search technology allows users to find
data across disparate applications and databases, even when they don’t know what they are
looking for. The iWay Enterprise Index can turn database transactions into web pages, then feed
those pages to a search engine. Subsequent searches will not only return the usual web page
findings, but also uncover information stored in transactional web pages, which iWay creates
on the fly. These special web pages contain links to the original database sources, as well as to
relevant reports, revealing new insight into the items you are searching for.

For example, since September 11, 2001, law enforcement officials have realized the importance of
sharing information across local, state, and federal databases. They have made great strides with
BI applications that can combine and access data from many different places. However, like most
BI solutions, these applications assume you know what you are looking for before you generate a
report or submit a query. Unfortunately, that’s not always how law enforcement personnel operate.

With WebFOCUS Magnify, a simple search for a license plate number could uncover transactions
across multiple data sources and law enforcement organizations. Magnify indexes transactions

11 Information Builders
across multiple data sources, then allows you to reach back into those data sources to find related
information – without having to create a data warehouse or join databases. A simple search on
indexed web pages reveals database records that help the user qualify the information. The search
results might represent three or four different databases along with references to transactions,
such as records of moving violations. It’s easy to tie those results back to a WebFOCUS report that
presents a history of the registered owner of the vehicle.

This progression is illustrated in the following screenshots. In Figure 1, a law enforcement officer
enters a partial license plate number (YOR) in the Magnify search box at the top of the page. This
returns a list of database transactions that include this string of plate numbers (on the right) and a
list of the associated data sources (on the left).

Figure 1.

In Figure 2, the officer has clicked on the data source to reveal the database records from which
these search results were derived. The officer found eight records in the Incident and Criminal
database, and five records in the Vehicle Registration database, along with an Officer Activity
Report about a particular offense.

12 Eight Styles of Data Integration

Figure 2.

In Figure 3, the officer clicks on Arrest History to narrow the search further. This brings up the
complete record of the incident in question.

Figure 3.

13 Information Builders
 Magnify takes search technology to the next level. You begin with freeform, Google-style
searches, then reach into the associated transactions and databases to find additional information.

Customer support reps could use this same type of technology to investigate a problem. The
billing system, marketing system, shipping system, and order entry system might all reference the
same customer. Simply entering a customer number or phone number could turn up records of
customer activity, so the rep can find additional information related to the customer’s problem.

Pro Tip: Master Data Management

A consistent, consolidated view of a product or person is essential for data
integrity. While data quality is about getting individual records correct, master
data management focuses on consolidating the data for a particular entity.
Because of duplicates and questionable records, organizations often struggle to
answer questions, such as “How many customers to you have?” or “How many
different products do you have in inventory?” Master data management helps
maintain consolidated and updated golden records. For more information, read
our white paper, The Worst Practices in Master Data Management.

7 Data Access via Web Services and Native APIs

Another effective way to access data is via a web service and native APIs. Information Builders’
web services and Native API adapters can treat data coming from an Internet web service as if it
were stored in a relational table. This solves many different problems, without recourse to a data
warehouse. For example, a purchasing officer might need to review a supplier’s inventory, pricing,
and delivery options to determine which items to restock. If that information is available as a web
service, the officer could retrieve it in a single report and make an instant restocking decision.
Regardless of the underlying operating systems, applications, or databases, the web service can
make all of the data look the same.

14 Eight Styles of Data Integration

Report results are obtained by combining data from one or more data sources
and web services. The web services are treated as relational tables.

Other companies need to combine their own internal data with external information. For example,
they may want to compare customer information with external demographic information and
plot it on a map. With the iWay Web Services Adapter, you can join data from an internal system
with demographic data from the Internet, perhaps using a zip code column as a point of similarity.

In other situations, developers create web services to extract a subset of information from an
internal database or application, enabling multiple departments to access their own slices of the
data. For example, the marketing department might need to tap into certain parts of a sales or
finance system. A web service can reveal just the pertinent data.

This flexibility is especially important in today’s highly distributed manufacturing world, where
a company might want to source production and assembly tasks to multiple partners, plants, or
contract manufacturers. Consider Guardian Industries Corp., a leading manufacturer of float glass and
fabricated glass products. Guardian and its affiliates manufacture glass in 24 plants in 14 countries.
The company selected WebFOCUS because it can work with a service-oriented architecture (SOA)
and because it preserves the hierarchy of information represented in reporting objects.

Guardian publishes web services from its enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications and
passes the information to WebFOCUS. WebFOCUS consumes the services and generates pertinent
reports for each department and contractor. To integrate its information systems, Guardian uses

15 Information Builders
 WebFOCUS ReportCaster, via its API, to automatically generate and print reports using the ERP
system. This enables the ERP system to create and maintain documents as discrete objects that are
accessible to many types of applications. Guardian can therefore securely exchange information,
both inside and outside the company, without the overhead of developing and maintaining a
data warehouse.

Pro Tip: Data Profiling

Data profiling provides a quick way to understand the characteristics of your
data. A graphically driven interface allows for quick discovery of outliers,
patterns, statistics, and other analysis. These capabilities enable users to
determine the content of data broadly, without having to scan millions of records
to uncover these patterns. When combined with data integration and data
quality, data profiling provides a repeatable way of measuring key metrics for
your data. These metrics help drive improvement and ensure that there are no
surprises along the way. Test drive our free online Data Profiler.

8 Cloud Data
Data integration within the cloud comes in many forms. Two of the more common scenarios
include:
■■ Leveraging cloud sources
■■ Storing data in the cloud

Leveraging Cloud Sources

The benefits of the cloud are limitless, with new sources of data appearing daily. Many sources,
especially curated ones, provide great value when integrated with enterprise data for data
discovery. Examples of cloud sources include online databases for postal addresses, people,
products, or even the weather.

Cloud sources can also come in the form of online applications, such as Salesforce.com, which
store operational data for an organization.

When integrating with the cloud, multiple data integration patterns may be used. When used
within an appropriate framework, such as the iWay Integration Suite, cloud sources appear no
differently than any other on-premise database or application. This flexibility allows the use of
different integration patterns which leverage cloud, on premise, or both simultaneously.

16 Eight Styles of Data Integration

 SaaS

Cloud Platforms/Services Social

Enterprise

ERP CRM JMS File

Custom
Legacy Database
Apps

Storing Data in the Cloud

Some cloud providers offer the ability to host data offsite. While basic patterns of integration also
work here, special consideration needs to be given to security and access. These considerations
are more important in the cloud than in on-premise storage, as cloud instances are by definition
not behind a firewall.

There are many advantages to storing data in the cloud. It can be faster and more affordable, because
it eliminates the need to purchase, deploy, and maintain hardware. This potential for lower TCO,
combined with increased agility, make cloud storage a very attractive option for many organizations.

Pro Tip: Unified Framework

No matter which integration pattern you use, or where you store your data, your
enterprise can derive maximum value from its investment by using a unified
framework. The key here is the ability to implement different styles of integration
seamlessly, so that multiple products don’t need to be purchased for different uses.
This flexibility accelerates ROI, while ensuring scalability, flexibility, and reuse.

17 Information Builders
 Conclusion

Organizations create data warehouses for reasons that are not entirely valid. While some integration
and BI projects may call for the deployment of a data warehouse, there are many scenarios where
other data access methods may be more appropriate. As the examples in this paper illustrate, there
are a variety of options for accessing and consolidating enterprise data exist. Which one will be
most effective will depend on the nature and scope of your initiative.

We suggest that you analyze each business challenge to understand whether a data warehouse
or other type of information-access technique will present the best solution for your needs.
Always try to identify the best method at the outset of the project, and don’t assume that a data
warehouse is the correct solution before assessing all the options.

About Information Builders

Information Builders helps organizations transform data into business value. Our software
solutions for business intelligence and analytics, integration, and data integrity empower people
to make smarter decisions, strengthen customer relationships, and drive growth. Our dedication
to customer success is unmatched in the industry. That’s why tens of thousands of leading
organizations rely on Information Builders to be their trusted partner. Founded in 1975, Information
Builders is headquartered in New York, NY, with offices around the world, and remains one of the
largest independent, privately held companies in the industry. Visit us at informationbuilders.com,
follow us on Twitter at @infobldrs, like us on Facebook, and visit our LinkedIn page.

You Might Also Like

The Top 6 Worst Practices in BI and

Analytics – and tips to turn a failure into

a success. Check out Slideshare today.

18 Eight Styles of Data Integration

Worldwide Offices
Corporate Headquarters International Middle East Innovative Corner Est.
Two Penn Plaza Australia* Riyadh 966-1-2939007
n Iraq n Lebanon n Oman n Saudi Arabia
New York, NY 10121-2898 Melbourne 61-3-9631-7900
n United Arab Emirates (UAE)
(212) 736-4433 Sydney 61-2-8223-0600
(800) 969-4636 Austria Raffeisen Informatik Consulting GmbH Netherlands*
Wien 43-1-211-36-3344 Amstelveen 31 (0)20-4563333
n Luxembourg
Brazil
São Paulo 55-11-2847-4519 Nigeria InfoBuild Nigeria
United States Garki-Abuja 234-9-290-2621
Atlanta, GA* (770) 395-9913 Canada
Calgary (403) 718-9828 Norway InfoBuild Norge AS c/o Okonor
Boston, MA* (781) 224-7660 Tynset 358-0-207-580-840
Montreal* (514) 421-1555
Channels (770) 677-9923 Ottawa (416) 364-2760 Portugal
Chicago, IL* (630) 971-6700 Toronto* (416) 364-2760 Lisboa 351-217-217-400
Cincinnati, OH* (513) 891-2338 Vancouver (604) 688-2499 Singapore Automatic Identification Technology Ltd.
Dallas, TX* (972) 398-4100 China Singapore 65-69080191/92
Denver, CO* (303) 770-4440 Beijing 86-10-5128-9680 South Africa InfoBuild (Pty) Ltd.
Detroit, MI* (248) 641-8820 Estonia InfoBuild Estonia ÖÜ Johannesburg 27-11-510-0070
Tallinn 372-618-1585 South Korea UVANSYS, Inc.
Federal Systems, D.C.* (703) 276-9006
Finland InfoBuild Oy Seoul 82-2-832-0705
Florham Park, NJ (973) 593-0022
Espoo 358-207-580-840 Southeast Asia
Houston, TX* (713) 952-4800
France* Singapore 60-172980912
Los Angeles, CA* (310) 615-0735 Puteaux +33 (0)1-49-00-66-00 n Bangladesh n Brunei n Burma n Cambodia

Minneapolis, MN* (651) 602-9100 Germany n Indonesia n Malaysia n Papua New Guinea

New York, NY* (212) 736-4433 n Thailand n The Philippines n Vietnam

Eschborn* 49-6196-775-76-0
Philadelphia, PA* (610) 940-0790 Greece Applied Science Ltd. Spain
Pittsburgh, PA (412) 494-9699 Athens 30-210-699-8225 Barcelona 34-93-452-63-85
Bilbao 34-94-400-88-05
San Jose, CA* (408) 453-7600 Guatemala IDS de Centroamerica
Madrid* 34-91-710-22-75
Seattle, WA (206) 624-9055 Guatemala City (502) 2412-4212
Sweden InfoBuild AB
St. Louis, MO* (636) 519-1411, ext. 321 India* InfoBuild India
Stockholm 46-8-76-46-000
Chennai 91-44-42177082
Tampa, FL (813) 639-4251 Switzerland
Israel SRL Software Products Ltd.
Washington, D.C.* (703) 276-9006 Dietlikon 41-44-839-49-49
Petah-Tikva 972-3-9787273
Taiwan Galaxy Software Services, Inc.
Italy
Taipei (866) 2-2586-7890, ext. 114
Agrate Brianza 39-039-596620
United Kingdom*
Japan KK Ashisuto
Uxbridge Middlesex 0845-658-8484
Tokyo 81-3-5276-5863
Venezuela InfoServices Consulting
Latvia InfoBuild Lithuania, UAB
Caracas 58212-763-1653
Vilnius 370-5-268-3327
Lithuania InfoBuild Lithuania, UAB * Training facilities are located at these offices.
Vilnius 370-5-268-3327
Mexico
Mexico City 52-55-5062-0660

Corporate Headquarters Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2898 (212) 736-4433 Fax (212) 967-6406 DN7507777.0714
Connect With Us informationbuilders.com [email protected]

Copyright © 2014 by Information Builders. All rights reserved. [118] All products and product names mentioned in this publication are
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.