Computer News Middle East: Head of Cognizant’s Middle East Operations Talks About Best Practices in Data Integration

When it comes to addressing data integration (DI) projects, CIOs need to take time to discern which products and vendors are right for their business, says Stephen Fernandes. “While enterprises spend time in evaluating all the features and trends in the data integration space, they need to keep a tight vigil on which of those new ‘features’ would best fit their enterprise requirements,” he notes.

Fernandes points to a few issues that can cause IT teams to struggle when implementing a DI project. “Lack of clarity on the scope and boundary of the DI tool, lack of understanding and firm commitment on the roadmap of functionality, lack of understanding or anticipation of the full effort and investment in setting up and sustaining a successful enterprise-wide DI environment and finally challenges with skilled staff,” he says.

On how enterprises can avoid sluggish roll-outs with solid research and planning, he avers, “Proper study and documentation of current DI capabilities and future wish-list provide a great foundation for the successful implementation of a DI tool.” Enterprises should also take steps to avoid the costly application-management problems that are sometimes involved with migrating to an SaaS environment. “The key to taking advantage of a cloud-based solution is consuming only what is needed when it is needed—and remaining diligent about turning off at other times,” says Fernandes.

In addition, sticking to the design of the SaaS tool is key. Customizations of SaaS tools can lead to unnecessary costs. “The more you can use the SaaS solution as it was designed, the lower your costs will be,” says Fernandes. He adds, “The benefits of cloud integration include no system administration, lower utilization price, uniform cost across the time period, pay-as-you-use facility, shorter time-to-market, shared risk, flexibility to configure OS and software, lower system/hardware maintenance cost, no investment in data centers, and ease of space expansion and scalability.”

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