Information Integration in a Global Enterprise: Some Experiences from a Financial Services Company

: In most commercial enterprises, information is scattered across a large number of (legacy) data stores. Moreover, it is nearly impossible to obtain funding to replace these data stores with a single integrated database, given tight budgets, time-to-market pressures and past failures of various kinds of large-scale efforts. In this paper, we advocate an approach which hinges on (1) a high-level enterprise information architecture, (2) the identification of the stable elements in this information architecture – essentially identifiers of some core entity types, the sets of legal values of some descriptive attributes – and (3) a central metadata and reference data repository which supports the tracking of the history of reference data. 1 The Application Area: Reinsurance A reinsurance company, or reinsurer, insures insurance companies, also called (primary) insurers. Much like insurers assume risk for a fixed price from their clients, either persons or organizations, reinsurers assu...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: BTW
• Authors: Robert Marti
• Keywords: BTW 2003, Data Stores, Primary Insurer, Reinsurers Assume Risk