Taking a different approach to master data management (MDM) and related data governance issues, start-up Purism a, asks, why not put all this into an appliance?

“Other [MDM] solutions force you to reengineer your systems to point to a single golden copy in one repository—an approach that can take years to accomplish,” claims Bob Hagenau, Purisma’s VP of products.

By contrast, Purisma’s Data Hub 3.0 offers a more federated approach that keeps, in effect, a metadata store inside an appliance. According to Hagenau, this approach eliminates the need to modify existing systems. Instead, all changes are made inside the metadata store, which can track the relationship of customer IDs that might be maintained in an SAP enterprise system, Siebel CRM, or a Hyperion business intelligence system.

And to keep matters simple, the Purisma Data Hub takes a unique approach that applies the benefits of hosted Software-as-a-Service offerings with locally installed software. Specifically, the product is downloaded as a self-contained J2EE application and database that is deployed inside a VMware partition. “By downloading our virtual appliance into VMware, we can remotely update and maintain the product just like it was software-as-a-service,” says Hagenau.

Purisma’s virtual MDM offering is used by enterprise systems supplier Infor to rationalize its disparate customer records.

“Having acquired roughly 40 companies, Infor is the epitome of fragmented customer data,” says Hagenau, adding that within six months after entering production, the Purisma appliance identified $5 million worth of renewal business that might have otherwise fallen through the cracks.

Purisma is planning specialized versions of its MDM offering—such as one containing Dun & Bradstreet data ( see graphic )—so companies can understand the administrative structures of their customers.