An Enterprise Data Model (EDM) represents a single integrated definition of data, unbiased of any system or application. It is independent of “how” the data is physically sourced, stored, processed or accessed. The model unites, formalizes and represents the things important to an organization, as well as the rules governing them.

For enterprise data initiatives, such as an Operational Data Store (ODS) or Data Warehouse (DW), an EDM is mandatory, since data integration is the fundamental principle underlying any such effort. An EDM facilitates the integration of data, inherent in legacy systems. It also plays a vital role in several other enterprise type initiatives:

Data Quality

Data Integration