Data Profiling and Data Cleansing

The approach used for data migration and traceability to source systems

including use of data profililing and cleansing as well as ETL tools.

Data profiling generally involves four tasks

performed before starting an IT project that affects preexisting databases. The first task inventories data assets (tables

and their column attributes). The second task assesses the quality and complexity of inventoried data assets. The third task

is to cleanse the data. The fourth task is staging the data for extraction into the Data warehouse system.

By

inventorying data assets, project planners know what database entities they have to work with, as well as relations among

them and how applications interface with them. By assessing the complexity and quality of specific database entities,

planners can more accurately scope the project, in terms of how it must also correct defects and adjust data

structures.

A major cost of SAP implementation, and often the major cause of cost and time overruns, is the effort

required to resolve problems with existing corporate data prior to migrating it to SAP. Companies have also discovered that,

due to the proprietary nature of the Legacy data, it can be especially challenging to leverage data in Legacy systems for

other purposes such as business intelligence applications or web initiatives.

The available tools that provide the

foundation necessary for organizations to thoroughly understand the content, structure and quality of their enterprise

corporate systems by profiling source data. This analysis reveals hidden data quality issues, inconsistencies and

incompatibilities between source and target applications. The Data profiling and cleansing tool provides automation along

with a repeatable methodology that makes profiling 100% of your source data possible. Staging this cleansed data and making

it available for extraction into the target system.
Whether you are implementing SAP for the first time, upgrading to a

new release of SAP, consolidating multiple implementations, or trying to improve the quality of data already in your system,

these product suites play a fundamental role in ensuring the success of your efforts.

Evoke or Ascential is able to

profile data extracts from multiple, disparate and often-inconsistent data sources into a single consistent view. These tools

can then be used to create detailed source-to-target maps and transformation specifications from or to new or existing

implementations. Data profiling is an essential component to implementing business intelligence applications such as SAP’s

Business Information Warehouse (BW) or other data warehousing initiatives.

BENEFITS
· Discover the true

structure, content and quality of data for migration into SAP and other ERP systems
· Reconcile multiple disparate data

sources for migration into SAP
· Provide complete transformation and mapping specifications for SAP integration
·

Reduced risk of project over runs or failure
· Improved quality of the data loaded into your new system
· Provides

accurate metadata on 100% of the source data
Across the range of vendor products, pricing starts at about $100,000 and can

easily exceed $250,000

By SUNAND KUMAR