One of the most daunting challenges facing business organizations is centralizing data sources. Often times, sales data from customers is delivered in a different format than supply data from vendors, while macro-level market data is provided by 3rd parties according to their own data formatting standards. The solution to this challenge, known as Enterprise Information Integration, is considered the central problem facing IT departments today.
Ensuring that different relational databases can interaction requires a standard set of API (application programming interface) standards that allow database administrators to centralize data for management. API formats including ODBC and OLE have innovated an entirely new way to access and aggregate different sources of data. Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is the leading API standard, which is based upon SQL queries and is widely used since it is platform-independent. The goal of these APIs is to provide a single data stream that can be distributed throughout the various tools that firms use to make decisions, from Customer Relationship (CRM) software to back-end dashboards.
As companies continue to invest in data integration technology, a large majority of these budgets are being allocated to Integration, which aims to (ultimately) reduce IT costs by combining data sources. With the movement to network-based systems, many corporate IT departments have been prioritizing investments in database software over new forms of hardware. The larger shift of technology budgets towards software is helping to foster innovation both in database and virtual server technology; in the context of a recession, many companies are looking to vastly reduce hardware costs and save on licensing fees from multiple database vendors.
