Sun Master Index Overview

With Sun Master Index, you can create and configure an enterprise-wide master index for any type of data. The Master Index Wizard guides you through the initial setup steps and special editors are provided so you can further customize the configuration, processing rules, and database structure of the master index. The wizard automatically generates the components you need to implement a master index.

Sun Master Index is highly configurable, allowing you to define the data structure of the information to be indexed and to define the logic that determines how data is updated, standardized, weighted, and matched in the master index database. The master indexes created by Sun Master Index provide accurate identification of objects throughout your organization and cross-reference an object’s local identifiers using an enterprise-wide unique identification number (EUID) assigned by the master index. The master index also ensures accuracy by identifying potential duplicate records and providing the ability to merge or resolve duplicate records. All information is centralized in one shared index. Maintaining a centralized database for multiple systems enables the indexing application to integrate data throughout the enterprise while allowing local systems to continue operating independently.

Sun Master Index Features

Sun Master Index provides your business with a powerful assortment of design-time features that you can use to create and configure master index applications. The runtime features allow you to manage the master index system and to perform continuous data cleansing in real time.

Design-Time Features

The Sun Master Index tools provide your business with flexibility in designing and creating indexing applications. This flexibility allows you to perform the following tasks.

• Rapidly develop a master index for any type of business entity using a wizard to create the framework and using a graphical editor to configure the attributes of the index.

• Automatically create the primary components of the master index.

• Customize the strategies that determine the field values to populate into the single best record (SBR).

• Configure the matching algorithm and logic by specifying the fields to standardize, the fields to use for matching, and the matching logic to use for each field.

• Incorporate a Java API that is customized to the object structure you define. You can call the operations in this API in the Collaboration Definitions or eInsight Business Processes of different Projects.

Runtime Features

The components of the master index application are designed to uniquely identify, match, and maintain information throughout a business enterprise. These components are highly configurable, allowing you to create a custom master index suited to your specific data processing needs. Sun Master Index applications provide the following features.

• Centralized Information - The master index maintains a centralized database, enabling the integration of data records throughout the enterprise while allowing local systems to continue operating independently. The index stores copies of local system records and of SBRs, which represent the most accurate and complete data for each object.

• Configurability - Before deploying the master index, you define the components and processing capabilities of the system to suit your organization’s processing requirements. You can configure the object structure, matching and standardization rules, survivorship rules, data filters, queries, Master Index Data Manager (MIDM) appearance, and field validation rules.

• Cross-referencing - The master index is a global cross-indexing application that automates record matching across disparate source systems, simplifying the process of sharing data between systems. The master index uses the local identifiers assigned by your existing systems as a reference for cross-indexing, allowing you to maintain your current systems and practices.

• Data Cleansing - The master index uses configurable matching algorithm logic to uniquely identify object records and to identify duplicate and potential duplicate records. The index provides the functionality to easily merge or resolve duplicates. The index can be configured to automatically merge records that are found to be duplicates of one another.

• Data Updates - The master index provides the ability to add, update, deactivate, and delete data in the database tables through messages received from external systems. Records received from external systems are checked for potential duplicates during processing. Updates can be performed in real time or as batch processes.

• Identification - The master index employs configurable probabilistic matching technology, using a matching algorithm to formulate an effective statistical measure of how closely records match. Using a state-of-the-art algorithm in real time and establishing a common method of locating records, the index consistently and precisely identifies objects within an enterprise.

• Matching Algorithm - The matching algorithm and logic used by the master index application is highly configurable. The Master Index Match Engine and Master Index Standardization Engine are used for standardization and matching, but a master index can also be implemented with other match engines that provide a compatible API. The matching and standardization logic is customizable with a framework that allows you to plug in customized logic.

• Unique Identifier - Records from various systems are cross-referenced using an enterprise-wide unique identifier (EUID) that the master index assigns to each object record. The index uses the EUID to cross-reference the local IDs assigned to each object by the various computer systems throughout the enterprise.

Sun Master Index Architecture

The Sun Master Index design-time components allow you to define the data structure of the business objects to be stored and cross-referenced and to define the logic that determines how data is processed in the master index application. As shown in the following diagram, the design-time components include a wizard, editors, configuration files, and database scripts. When the master index project is built, a master index application is created that can be deployed to the application server.

Figure 2 Sun Master Index Design-Time Components

Building and deploying the master index application creates the runtime components of Sun Master Index, including components that process and persist data, master index services, and the Master Index Data Manager (a web-based GUI to monitor and maintain master index data). Runtime components also include the master index database. The following diagram illustrates the runtime components of a master index application.

Figure 3 Sun Master Index Runtime Components