Erwin Data Intelligence – Richard Adams Interview

The latest in data governance tools: erwin Data Intelligence suite

erwin is best known for its market leading data modelling software but is increasingly being recognised by industry analysts for its data governance capabilities in the form of the erwin Data Intelligence Suite. Indeed, Gartner has put them in the Magic Quadrant for Metadata Management Solutions (Nov. 2020).

Having become part of Quest back in 2020, erwin released version 12 of its Data Intelligence suite, earlier this summer.

We spoke to erwin’s Data Intelligence Solution Strategist Richard Adams who has had experience working in data governance at a variety of different organisations, including HSBC Bank, GlaxoSmithKline, and Transport for London about the advantages of the new release.

Earlier versions of the Data Intelligence Suite provided a Data Catalog which uses two significant modules and connectors to automatically populate a customer’s technical assets, with the Metadata Manager managing data-at-rest, while data-in-motion, is handled by the Mapping Manager.

A Business Glossary Manager and the AI Match module automates association and classification of terms and technical assets.

Among the biggest attractions are the new Data Quality and Discover Assets modules built into Data Intelligence v12 – at no additional cost to the user.

Data quality and data governance go hand-in-hand with erwin’s Data Intelligence Suite.

The latest release gives greater clout to data governance teams and business users with the ability to review live data, rather than just focus on metadata.

Thanks to the Discover Assets module, read-only users are able to offer feedback to the users who maintain the content.Better still, the Data Quality module allows assessment of live data, spotting patterns and ensuring adherence to logical rules.

As a result data quality ratings for assets, issue management and transparency for users are all at everyone’s fingertips helping the remediation of live data, said Richard.

The new Discover Assets module empowers the socialisation of content to stakeholders to see data easily, all in one place – and within the crucial context of their roles in the business – thanks to the business-user friendly portal that can search and find content across the entire Data Intelligence suite, Richard confirmed.

The developments allow for more proactive working methods – rather than reactive – helping to drive improve data quality and data governance.

One of the great advantages of erwin’s Data Intelligence suite continues to offer, is its automated reverse engineering of the code used to move data, and data discovery, thanks to its extensive compatibility with all the industry standard data platforms and servers, and their respective software languages.

In the never-ending hunt for shorter and shorter periods of time before value from an organisation or enterprise’s data can be achieved, the fact that your source systems will connect to the Data Intelligence Suite which will then discover and map your data structures automatically, cannot be understated.

It is a well-known fact that data analysts spend 85 per cent of their time looking for good quality data, and then preparing and protecting it, but only 15 per cent actually analysing it.

The increased automation achieved by utilising the Data Intelligence Suite changes the balance of that equation, and gives them the tools to increase data awareness, creating business opportunity, while guaranteeing good data governance.

Using erwin Data Intelligence Suite ensures that the metadata harvested from any array of data sources, is kept current and all changes are clearly tracked, making the role of the data steward easier.

It also raises awareness of sensitive data within the organisation so that a range of risks can be guarded against and your regulatory responsibilities complied with.The detailed data lineage and impact analysis – using mind maps and user-friendly dashboards – gives a quick and firm grasp of the client’s data landscape.

That greater visibility of that data quality across the enterprise or organisation should not only help achieve reduced costs and greater profits, but also free up business users, IT, and data governance teams to collaborate on leveraging more value from data assets.

Data connectors have been developed by erwin’s engineers so that it can now offer a wide array of industry-proven products that work with everything from Python, Java, JSON, Spark and kafka to SQL Server, Snowflake, AWS, SAP, Azure, Oracle, IBM, Redshift, Github and Power BI.

Richard believes erwin’s licensing structure also creates greater value for customers, especially when it comes to the connectors for ELT and ETL platforms, plus BI reporting tools and programming languages.

He said: “The connectors list is continuously growing based on the needs of our customers. – if a connector is required that is not on our published list, then it can be purchased for the same cost as if it was… we will build it.

“As a result, any new connectors are then available for our product so other users can benefit from them.

There are other good examples of products that can complete the automation, or the data governance functions – but with erwin Data Intelligence Suite, it’s all at your fingertips in one software package.

Richard added: “Sometimes a potential customer may think the suite offers far more than they require. But often, if we can talk to other parts of the business, we can show how our product can bring the business together on their project.

“It might be that other teams do not need to use elements of it straight away, it might be in week two or month three, but it can help solve multiple problems. And the way our licensing model works, is that the customer don’t have to necessarily have to buy into utilising all of it. That way we can keep the costs down for companies that would like to focus on particular use cases and not purchase everything at once.

“If a customer would like to scale up gradually with different areas they can do so by having those licences available at the right time for them – and the connectors at the right time for them.”

The subscription typically sees three releases a year, with the advances in capabilities based on the feedback from erwin’s customers and global network of experienced partners.

Datavault has a wide range of experience helping clients deliver information governance projects and is delivery partner for erwin Data Intelligence.

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