Survey Reports that Cloud Integration is Becoming a Bigger Issue by David Linthicum.
David cites a survey by KPMG that found thirty-three percent of executives complained of higher than expected costs for data integration in cloud projects.
One assume the brighter thirty-three percent of those surveyed. The remainder apparently did not recognize data integration issues in their cloud projects.
David writes:
Part of the problem is that data integration itself has never been sexy, and thus seems to be an issue that enterprise IT avoids until it can’t be ignored. However, data integration should be the life-force of the enterprise architecture, and there should be a solid strategy and foundational technology in place.
Cloud computing is not the cause of this problem, but it’s shining a much brighter light on the lack of data integration planning. Integrating cloud-based systems is a bit more complex and laborious. However, the data integration technology out there is well proven and supports cloud-based platforms as the source or the target in an integration chain. (emphasis added)
The more diverse data sources become, the larger data integration issues will loom.
Topic maps offer data integration efforts in cloud projects a choice:
1) You can integrate one off, either with inhouse or third-party tools, only to redo all that work with each new data source, or
2) You can integrate using a topic map (for integration or to document integration) and re-use the expertise from prior data integration efforts.
Suggest pitching topic maps as a value-add proposition.