Semantic Integration in Enterprise Information Management

INTRODUCTION With the rapid growth in the modern day enterprise comes explosion of information, diversity in formats and the sources where they are located. Present day Enterprise Information Management (EIM) Systems manage this disparity through what is known as Syntactic Integration. This is done through techniques like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Enterprise Information Integration (EII). While this is a fundamental building block towards the “Single Version of truth” paradigm, it still fails to achieve the so called “Semantic Integration.” Semantic Integration can be realized when every single Information Asset has “one meaning” or “one context” to it. To achieve this state, the Enterprise Information Management Systems and the underlying architectures need to be enhanced. This paper attempts at outlining the enhancements and discusses the technology options available. CURRENT STATE OF ENTERPRISE INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE As organizations grow, new systems and applications are added and processes are refined, modified or improved. Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) is constantly challenged by organizational expansion and changes due to: