In 2012, Pitney Bowes enhanced its Spectrum technology for data management to help organizations realize the full value of data entities. Its relationship discovery technology for graph modeling accelerates association of data in the enterprise and with social media. The latest version, Spectrum 8, brings together data integration, data quality and master data management in an integrated approach to enterprise information management. Architecturally it uses data federation and data integration interfaces to its master data management hub to bring together core capabilities including a portfolio of data quality and data enrichment capabilities. One of Spectrum 8’s unique elements is its support for location and spatial data. Our research on cloud computing reveals the rising importance of data management in these environments; I hope that Pitney Bowes will address this in future versions.
In announcing version 8, the company detailed a spectrum of improvements. Its latest data integration release takes steps forward with a visual query builder and deeper support for XML sourcing, synchronization and schemas; it also helps the enterprise with scheduling, loaders and transactional support for databases and XML. In data quality, Spectrum 8 supports location and address certifications and validation through forward and reverse geocoding, which is now expanded to include China, India and many other countries, as well as providing a new module for transliteration. In master data management, it adds a range of modeling techniques, hierarchy management including visual analysis and social network analysis, reliability advancements in clustering, fault tolerance and hot backup of the system. Further it has advanced support for what we call location analytics and spatial management of business data. Our current research into location analytics shows that these improvements are timely, as organizations need better support for making data location-aware, which Pitney Bowes is doing across the entire Spectrum offering. I also am impressed by the usability of the system, which as well as IT specialists also will suit analysts who are familiar with data relationships. Read More