review articles

Doi: 10.1145/1378727.1378745

A guide to the tools and core technologies for
merging information from disparate sources.
BY PhiliP a. BeRnstein anD lauRa m. haas
information
integration in
the enterprise

LARGE ENTERPRISES SPEND a great deal of time and money on “information integration”—combining information from different sources into a unified format. Frequently cited as the biggest and most expensive challenge that information-technology shops face, information integration is thought to consume about 40% of their budget. ^{4, 14, 16, 33, 36} Market-intelligence firm iDC estimates that the market for data integration and access software (which includes the key enabling technology for information integration) was about $2.5 billion in 2007 and is expected to grow to $3.8 billion in 2012, for an average annual growth rate of 8.7%. ²⁰

Software purchases are only one part of the total expense. integration activities cover any form of information reuse, such as moving data from one application’s database to another’s, translating messages for business-to-business e-commerce, and providing access to structured data and documents via a Web portal.