Data Quality Tidbits in the News

(Catching up on my reading while listening to news reports about local forest fires....a common occurrence in Eastern Washington, but not conducive to a calm night's sleep.)

I like reading Vince Mcburney's blog -- he always has the pulse of data integration software trends. He noted yesterday that Oracle is planning to merge Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) and Oracle Data Integrator (ODI). It'll apparently take a rev or two to accomplish, but it's the official long-term strategy. Vince has some good points (and questions) about functionality and licensing -- if you have an interest in Oracle's offer in this space his post is worth a read. My background (as a former IBMer) is in InfoSphere, and I'm curious to see how the end-stage offers compare.

On a more theoretical (aka strategy) note, Mike Overturf is thinking about patterns in data quality. I absolutely agree that patterns have a place in the world of data. Let's face it, we all know there's some generalized patterns for data models (David Hay having published the best expositions on the matter). Patterns in data quality and data integration aren't a stretch. The specific details of any given implementation will vary, but the core concepts remain reasonably true to center.

Looks like my fellow dba and I will be busy next week -- Oracle's releasing a patchset with "45 critical security fixes" Tuesday. Maybe I'll get lucky and the patches will target features we don't use. (It's been known to happen.)


Oh, and congrats to Mark Rittman of Rittman-Mead, on the 5th anniversary of his blog!