http://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?id=1457I just stumbled across an post from ITBusines Edge titled: How Semantic Technology Can Help Companies with Integration. While reading the post I encountered the term: Master Data Manager (MDM), and wondered to myself, "what's that?" only to realize it's the very same thing I described as a Data Virtualization or Virtual Database technology (circa. 1998). Now, if re-labeling can confuse me when applied to a realm I've been intimately involved with for eons (internet time). I don't want to imagine what it does for others who aren't that intimately involved with the important data access and data integration realms. On the more refreshing side, the article does shed some light on the potency of RDF and OWL when applied to the construction of conceptual views of heterogeneous data sources. "How do you know that data coming from one place calculates net revenue the same way that data coming from another place does? You’ve got people using the same term for different things and different terms for the same things. How do you reconcile all of that? That’s really what semantic integration is about." BTW - I discovered this article via another titled: Understanding Integration And How It Can Help with SOA, that covers SOA and Integration matters. Again, in this piece I feel the gradual realization of the virtues that RDF, OWL, and RDF Linked Data bring to bear in the vital realm of data integration across heterogeneous data silos. Conclusion A number of events, at the micro and macro economic levels, are forcing attention back to the issue of productive use of existing IT resources. The trouble with the aforementioned quest is that it ultimately unveils the global IT affliction known as: heterogeneous data silos, and the challenges of pain alleviation, that have been ignored forever or approached inadequately as clearly shown by the rapid build up of SOA horror stories in the data integration realm. Data Integration via conceptualization of heterogenous data sources, that result in concrete conceptual layer data access and management, remains the greatest and most potent application of technologies associated with the "Semantic Web" and/or "Linked Data" monikers. Related InforWorld 2003 Innovator article 2006 Podcast Interview with Jon Udell Enterprise Information Integration One of several posts about our Virtuoso Universal Server and Conceptual Model based data integration History of Virtuoso Mike Bergman's post titled: WOA: A New Enterprise Partner for Linked Data Sun, 12 Oct 2008 18:53:44 GMTVirtuoso Universal Server 08.03.3334Kingsley Uyi Idehenhttp://www.openlinksw.com:443/weblog/public/images/vbloglogo.gifhttp://www.openlinksw.com:443/blog/kidehen@openlinksw.com/blog/?id=1457I have seen the future and it's full of Linked Data! :-)8831