InfoSphere Master Data Management Server for Product Information Management

IBM® InfoSphere™ Master Data Management Server for Product Information Management provides extensive features to manage all aspects of product information, including linking to information regarding products, locations, organizations, and terms of trade.

Rich data model for all aspects of product information

Companies must manage various dimensions of product information, including item, location, and organization data, and all the linkages among those, including prices and trade terms. With InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM, customers can manage item and location information with numerous classification, merchandising, geographic, and operational hierarchies.

Organizational modeling with role- and attribute-level security administration

Product information is often owned and modified by users from multiple departments within a company. With InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM, companies can segment various attributes of product data by business responsibility (e.g. logistics, finance, pricing, marketing, and supplier) as well as control user actions (view only, edit, approve) based on their roles.

Extensive business process support

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM is designed to support and enhance business processes for product information management in an enterprise. Rather than enforcing hardened business models and processes, InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM allows an enterprise to define its existing or new business processes in InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM.

Multiple hierarchies and taxonomies can be laid on top of the same collection of items. The hierarchy structures can be representatives of business units, industry standards, store locations, regions, and so on. Product information can be managed in multiple languages, with robust support for managing the translation process with third-party translation agencies.

High performance, scalability, and reliability

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM is designed to manage millions of products with translated and localized product data across geographies. Companies can deploy InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM with hundreds of users, managing product data for hundreds of stores. It is designed to process high volumes of data synchronization messages and product information queries per day.

Open and interoperable

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM operates in heterogeneous IT environments. It integrates with industry-leading message bus tools such as WebSphere MQ and supports multiple protocols such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, JMS, and Web Services for ease of integration.

Flexible deployment and manageability

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM provides tools for system administrators for fast deployment and ease of management.

Improved usability

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM V6.0 introduces a Task Management Dashboard that can be set as the user's home screen. It lists alerts awaiting the user's attention, and includes shortcuts to the screens and tools that the user uses most frequently. Dashboard implementation is Java Server Page (JSP) based, uses the new Java API interface of InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM, and can be extended and customized to meet client requirements.

Another new screen is the Lightweight Item Single Edit screen that offers an alternative for casual users to the more powerful Item Single Edit Screen. This new screen offers basic functionality that is much lighter in client-side scripting. It uses new Web 2.0 technology and can be extended to meet client requirements.

Extended SOA enablement

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM provides an interface to Web services that allows for easy integration with existing and new enterprise applications. These Web services can be written in Java, allowing developers to leverage third-party Web services development, testing, and deployment tools.

Pre-built integration templates

IBM InfoSphere Information Server (IIS) offers data cleansing and data movement capabilities via IBM InfoSphere DataStage and IBM InfoSphere QualityStage. Typical PIM implementations require cleansing of data during imports. While InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM provides very good data cleansing capabilities, it is not a data movement and data cleansing tool. However, with the pre-built templates for IIS integration, large volumes of data can be cleansed within IIS and prepared in a format that loads faster in InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM. This accelerator can help reduce the time and complexity to implement a PIM solution.

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM is typically the master PIM repository for an enterprise, with business users interacting with this repository every day. Pre-built jobs are provided for exporting data to IBM InfoSphere Business Glossary where business users can have easy access to the PIM data dictionary.

Many implementations have systems downstream from InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM. Since it is usually a time-consuming effort to communicate metadata from InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM systems, pre-built jobs are provided that export metadata in a format that can be loaded into IBM MetaData Server. This can help customers reduce maintenance costs. Any changes to the metadata for InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM are sent to the IBM MetaData Server, which can communicate the changes to all of the downstream systems.

Serviceability tools

InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM provides serviceability tools that can help reduce the time to collect pertinent logs and send them to IBM Tech Support. This can help IBM Tech Support respond with potentially quicker turnaround.

Java API

Prior to Version 5.2.1, all of the customization logic was written in the scripting language of InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM -- a proprietary language very similar to Java Script. In Version 5.2.1, a subset of the Script API functionality was exposed via Java API. In Version 6.0, complete Script API functionality is also exposed via Java API. Java API is included to accelerate integration with other applications in the enterprise. This standard Java API exposes commonly used business objects and supports query functions, thus allowing external systems to search for products or entities maintained within InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM.

The detailed system requirements for WebSphere Product Center are documented in these support documents:

• Detailed system requirements for Version 5.3.2