SQL Server 2012 Aids Data Consistency

SQL Server 2012 includes a new feature intended to help database professionals ensure that the data within both production and business intelligence (BI) databases is consistent and accurate. Called Data Quality Services (DQS), the feature is based on technology Microsoft obtained with the 2008 acquisition of Israel-based Zoomix.

Ensuring Quality Data with DQS

The practice of data cleansing is intended to deliver a certain “known good” level of information that is accurate, valid, conforms to the expected format, is up to date, and is not needlessly duplicated to ensure a level of data quality.

Quality data in a production online transaction processing (OLTP) database is critical to providing optimal business practices. Incorrect or duplicate information can result in problems such as customers not receiving products they should, customers who have opted out of marketing programs in a customer relationship management system continuing to receive marketing materials, data loss, or lost business. Bad data can lead to incorrect results in BI insights and bad or suboptimal business decisions.