About the Standardization and Matching Process

The foundation of the Sun MDM Suite lies in data standardization and matching capabilities. During runtime, both matching and standardization occur when two records are analyzed for the probability of a match. In an MDM application, the standardization and matching process includes the following steps:

1. The master index application receives an incoming record.

2. The Master Index Standardization Engine standardizes the fields specified for parsing, normalization, and phonetic encoding based on customizable rules.

3. The master index application queries the database for a candidate selection pool (records that are possible matches) using the customizable blocking query.

4. For each possible match, the master index application creates a match string based on the fields specified for matching. It sends the string to the Master Index Match Engine.

5. The Master Index Match Engine checks the incoming record against each possible match, producing a matching weight for each. Matching is performed using the weighting rules defined in the match configuration file.

6. The master index application determines how to handle the incoming record based on the match weight, matching parameters, and configurable business logic. One of the following occurs:

   • A new record is added with no potential duplicates.

   • A new record is added, but is flagged as a potential duplicate of other records.

   • An existing record is updated.