Thanks to everyone who attended my “Introduction to Microsoft’s Master Data Services (MDS)” for the Data Architecture Virtual Chapter.  The recording of the session is available here.

Here is the PowerPoint presentation: Introduction to Microsoft’s Master Data Services (MDS)

I had some excellent questions at the end of the session, and here is more follow-up to my answers:

1) How do you provide high availability for MDS?  If you are using SQL Sever 2012, check out Installing Master Data Services in an AlwaysOn Environment.  To load-balance, check out Configuring a MDS load-balanced web farm using IIS v7 ARR.  MDS will work in a clustered environment if you have CU1 installed: FIX: Master Data Services is not supported on a clustered installation of SQL Server 2012.

2) What are the licensing costs for Profisee Master Data Maestro?  For that info, please contact Gene Webb, Senior Sales Executive at Profisee

3) Can you explain in more detail the “registry” hub architecture?  I’ll have a future blog post about this, but for now check out Master Data Management (MDM) Hub Architecture

Introduction to Microsoft’s Master Data Services (MDS)

Companies struggle with consolidating the same set of data from multiple systems to accurately report on critical business information. For example, having customer lists in multiple systems that often have the same customer in more than one list, sometimes with a different spelling. Master Data Services is bundled with SQL Server 2012 to help resolve many of the Master Data Management issues that companies are faced with when integrating data. In this session, James will show an overview of Master Data Services 2012, including the out of the box Web UI, the highly developed Excel Add-in, and how to get started with loading MDS with your data.