Master Data Management (MDM) is a crucial aspect of data management in organizations. It involves defining and managing non-transactional data entities to ensure consistency and control in data maintenance and application use. Microsoft SQL Server provides Master Data Services (MDS) as a tool to automate the setup and maintenance of look-up or cross-reference tables, hierarchies, dimensions, and reference data.

MDM aims to collect, aggregate, match, consolidate, quality-assure, persist, and distribute data throughout an organization. It helps in achieving a single customer view, data quality compliance, and a central system of record. Let’s explore some key concepts related to MDM and MDS:

What is Master Data?

Master data refers to the non-transactional data entities of an organization, which may include reference data. These entities can be customers, products, employees, or any other data that is critical for business operations. MDM focuses on managing and maintaining this master data to ensure its accuracy and consistency.

Benefits of Master Data Management

Implementing MDM offers several benefits to organizations:

• Consistency: MDM ensures consistent and accurate data across the enterprise.
• Control: It provides control over data maintenance and application use.
• Data Quality Compliance: MDM helps in monitoring and improving data quality through profiling, cleansing, parsing, standardization, matching, enrichment, and validation techniques.
• Single Customer View: MDM enables organizations to have a unified view of customers, eliminating duplicate or conflicting data.

Master Data Services (MDS)

Microsoft SQL Server provides Master Data Services (MDS) as a tool for implementing MDM. MDS allows organizations to create models, entities, attributes, hierarchies, and business rules to manage their master data effectively.

Setting up the Model and Creating an SSIS Load Package

To set up a model in MDS, you can use the MDS web application. Once the model is created, you need to load data into the MDS staging tables. These staging tables include:

• tblStgMember: Members staging table
• tblStgMemberAttribute: Attribute assignment staging table
• tblStgRelationship: Parent/child relationship staging table

To load data into these staging tables, you can use SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS). An SSIS package can be created to load data from various sources into the staging tables. The package can utilize components like Multicast Transform, Derived Column Transform, and Aggregate Transform to manipulate and load the data efficiently.

It’s important to understand the metadata required for loading members into the model. The metadata includes the Model Name, Entity Name, Member Type ID, Member Name, and Member Code. This metadata can be obtained from the internal MDS tables using SQL queries.

Conclusion

Master Data Management and Master Data Services in SQL Server provide organizations with the tools and processes to effectively manage their master data. By implementing MDM, organizations can achieve data consistency, control, and quality compliance. SQL Server’s MDS offers a user-friendly interface and integration with other SQL Server components like SSIS for seamless data loading and management.

Remember, mastering your data is crucial for making informed business decisions and ensuring the success of your organization.