Data Management: Data Integration (Definitions)

"The process of coherently using data from across platforms. applications or business units. Data integration ensures that data from different sources is merged allowing silos of data to be combined." (Tony Fisher, "The Data Asset", 2009)

"The planned and controlled:

a) merge using some form of reference,

b) transformation using a set of business rules, and

c) flow of data from a source to a target, for operational and/or analytical use. Data needs to be accessed and extracted, moved, validated and cleansed, standardized, transformed, and loaded. (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"The collection of data from various sources with the same significance into one uniform record. This data may be physically integrated, for example, into a data warehouse or virtually, meaning that the data will remain in the source systems, however will be accessed using a uniform view." (Boris Otto & Hubert Österle, "Corporate Data Quality", 2015)

"Data integration comprises the activities, techniques, and tools required to consolidate and harmonize data from different (multiple) sources into a unified view. The processes of extract, transform, and load (ETL) are part of this discipline." (Piethein Strengholt, "Data Management at Scale", 2020)

"Pulling together and reconciling dispersed data for analytic purposes that organizations have maintained in multiple, heterogeneous systems. Data needs to be accessed and extracted, moved and loaded, validated and cleaned, and standardized and transformed." (Information Management)

"The combination of technical and business processes used to combine data from disparate sources into meaningful insights." (Solutions Review)

"The process of retrieving and combining data from different sources into a unified set for users, organizations, and applications." (MuleSoft) 

"Data integration is the practice of consolidating data from disparate sources into a single dataset with the ultimate goal of providing users with consistent access and delivery of data across the spectrum of subjects and structure types, and to meet the information needs of all applications and business processes." (OmiSci) [source]

"Data integration is the process of combining data from multiple source systems to create unified sets of information for both operational and analytical uses." (Techtarget)

"Data integration is the process of bringing data from disparate sources together to provide users with a unified view. The premise of data integration is to make data more freely available and easier to consume and process by systems and users." (Tibco) [source]

"Data integration is the process of retrieving and combining data from different sources into a unified set of data. Data integration can be used to combine data for users, organizations, and applications." (kloudless)

"Data integration is the process of taking data from multiple disparate sources and collating it in a single location, such as a data warehouse. Once integrated, data can then be used for detailed analytics or to power other enterprise applications." (Xplenty) [source]

"Data integration is the process used to combine data from disparate sources into a unified view that can provide valuable and actionable information." (snowflake) [source]

"Data integration refers to the technical and business processes used to combine data from multiple sources to provide a unified, single view of the data." (OmiSci) [source]

"The discipline of data integration comprises the practices, architectural techniques and tools for achieving the consistent access and delivery of data across the spectrum of data subject areas and data structure types in the enterprise to meet the data consumption requirements of all applications and business processes." (Gartner)