ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the approaches, challenges and benefits of data integration, demonstrates the emerging "data virtualization" techniques and highlights the importance of (meta)data standardization to enhance this process. It provides further discussions of how agility is achieved in the data integration step of Agile Integrated Methodology for Strategic Business Intelligence. There are a number of approaches to data integration that have been classified in various ways. One possible way to view this is to consider two broad classes that are distinguishable based on whether the data is physically integrated or logically integrated There are several factors to be considered when choosing between physical and virtual integration. The physical integration option is seen as impractical for some organizations, particularly Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. Thus, lower cost, less resource intensive, more agile approaches have been sought which gave rise to a number of alternative approaches, such as logical data integration.
