Data Mapping
The simple explanation of data mapping is
that it is the process of creating data element
mappings that exist between two different
data models. Data mapping is a part
of the data integration process. Data
mapping is a part of data integration including
data transformation or data mediation, which
takes place between a data source and the
data destination. Data mapping is
also a part of the identification of data
existing as a data lineage analysis, and
hidden sensitive data. Data mapping
is used by a lot of different people and
companies for a variety of reasons. Data
mapping is a good way to transmit and receive
purchases, invoices, and creating data maps
for purchase orders. Data mapping is
being used more and more between companies
and data mapping is even being used in inter
company department as a part of communications.
More on Data Mapping
Many people deal with data mapping every day
without even realizing it. For instance,
data mapping is utilized when a company would
like to send and receive purchases. Data
mapping could be used to create the data maps
from the company's standard ANSI messages. Data
mapping can be used for purchase orders, invoices,
and other company messages.
There are different ways to go about data
mapping. Hand coded or graphical manual
data mapping is one way in which data mapping
can be done. All data mapping is done
via procedural code, creating XSLT transforms
or by using graphical mapping tools. These
data mapping tools will automatically generate
programs that can be transformed. These
data mapping tools are graphical in nature
and will allow the data mapping user to draw
lines from a filed in one type of data to fields
in another type of data. These data mapping
transformation programs are generally created
in SQL, XSL, Java, or C++.
There are data driven mapping techniques,
which is one of the newest data mapping techniques. Data
driven data mapping requires one to evaluate
actual data values into two different data
sources at the same time. Many people
like this type of data mapping technique because
it allows for data exceptions that generally
would not be discovered through transformation
logic.
Semantic mapping is another approach and it
is not unlike the auto connect features that
graphical data mapping users utilize. The
difference between this type of data mapping
and graphical data mapping is that with semantic
data mapping a metadata registry can be used
to inquire about different data element synonyms. There
are limitations to semantic data mapping though,
as this sort of data mapping will only find
exact matches between columns of data and is
not able to locate any transformation logic
or even any exceptions between columns.
Those that do data mapping usually have their
preferred way to go about it. Some people
like one type of data mapping better than others,
and other professionals will tell you that the
method of data mapping that they choose truly
depends on the type of document and document
language that they are dealing with. Having
experience in all data mapping varieties is a
great asset as it will allow the data mapping
specialist to call on all of their data mapping
experience to make each data mapping experience
as streamlined as possible. |
