What it Means to be a True SaaS MDM

As companies set out to evaluate a new master data management (MDM) solution, being software-as-a-service (SaaS) is often at the top of their list of requirements. After all, companies today want the scalability and flexibility that true SaaS has to offer. Yet, too often, a closer look under the hood reveals a different story. 

While many MDM solutions that claim to be SaaS-based or cloud-native offer most of the capabilities of a true SaaS solution, they often fall short in one or more areas. So if you’re evaluating a SaaS-based MDM, consider the following.

5 Core Capabilities of True SaaS-Based MDM Solutions

Not all SaaS-based MDM solutions are the same. That’s why it’s important to understand the core capabilities that make a solution truly SaaS. When evaluating SaaS-based MDM solutions, ask the following questions. And if the solution is truly SaaS, you should expect the following responses.

Q: What infrastructure do we need to install and maintain? 

A: This is a trick question—because if the solution is truly SaaS, the answer should be “nothing.” That’s because true SaaS MDM solutions do not require customers to deploy any infrastructure on their end. Instead, the MDM solution provider takes full responsibility for hosting, managing, and monitoring the solution. So if the MDM solution you are evaluating requires you to install components within your infrastructure, then the solution is not truly SaaS. 

Q: Is the solution SOC 2, Type II compliant?

A: True SaaS-based MDM solutions should always be SOC 2, Type II compliant, which means an independent auditor has reviewed and verified that the company has demonstrated, through continuous monitoring and evidence, that they employ strong, industry standard business and security practices to ensure product quality and to properly safeguard your data. 

Q: What is your autoscaling policy?

A: True SaaS-based MDM solutions should have the ability to automatically scale up or scale down resources in near real time, enabling the vendor to rightsize the infrastructure based on demand. This capability is particularly important in a multi-tenant environment when there is a sudden burst of traffic from one customer. Near real-time auto-scaling allows true SaaS providers to mitigate the “noisy neighbor problem” while maintaining quality of service. 

Q: Is the solution single- or multi-tenant? If multi-tenant, how do you maintain isolation across tenant data?

A: A true (and traditional) SaaS solution will always be multi-tenant, which means multiple customers share the same infrastructure resources, such as compute and storage. Tamr understands the sensitive nature of customer data and maintains firm data boundaries to ensure the data remains isolated and independent at all times within our cloud infrastructure.

Q: How do you support custom alerts and notifications?

A: True SaaS MDM solution providers have tools to monitor the solution, send alerts and notifications, and conduct failover processes if an issue arises. The vendor should also provide visualizations, reports, and dashboards that customers can monitor so they are always aware of the current status of the infrastructure. 

The Benefits and ROI of a True SaaS MDM Solution

True end-to-end SaaS solutions increase return on investment (ROI) by offering a host of benefits ranging from lower upfront costs and quicker time-to-value to greater flexibility and built-in scalability. In fact, organizations often see significant improvements in master data management ROI because true SaaS solutions eliminate the need for expensive, on-premises infrastructure—which, as a result, eliminates costs for hardware, hosting, and maintenance. In addition, because the SaaS-based MDM solution provider does all the managing and monitoring of the solution and infrastructure, costs shift from capital expenditures (CapEx) to operating expenses (OpEx). 

Further, true SaaS solutions automatically scale to meet your needs, giving you peace of mind that you’ll experience consistent performance and capacity as your needs evolve and you add analytical or operational use cases. True SaaS solutions are also easier to use, allowing you and your team to adopt the product faster and take advantage of new functionality.

Lastly, SaaS MDM solutions are quick to deploy—think days or weeks, not months or years—because they don’t require extensive IT support, infrastructure buildouts, or technical resources to write code. As a result, your internal IT and data ops teams can remain focused on their current priorities without worrying about taking on additional workloads.  

Tamr’s AI-Native MDM is a True SaaS-Based Solution

Unlike other MDM solutions in the market, Tamr can confidently say it’s a true AI-native, SaaS-based MDM solution. Not only do we check all the boxes when it comes to the five core capabilities listed above, but we also deliver the following:

• Feature release vs. code release: Tamr separates feature deployment from code deployment which means we can turn on features for specific tenants without requiring a full code update. This capability allows us to give customers early access and the chance to provide feedback before broad release. 
• Regional availability: Tamr is currently available in five major regions around the world with data stored in the US, Canada, the EU (Belgium), the UK (London), and APAC (Singapore). Each of these regions remains isolated and independent in order to comply with data boundaries, regulatory compliance, and data governance laws. 
• Synchronized code release: Tamr releases code to all five regions at the same time, which allows customers with tenants in multiple regions to remain in sync, while maintaining data boundaries. 
• No co-mingling of data: Tamr is a multi-tenant solution that does not co-mingle data. We create a separate Google Cloud Platform (GCP) project for each customer and store the tenant’s data and intermediate datasets within the project. We also create a per-tenant schema in the database for logical isolation of metadata, which ensures that their data remains isolated from others. 

Not All SaaS MDM Solutions Are Created Equally

If you only take one thing away from this post, it’s that not every SaaS MDM solution is what it claims to be. That’s why it’s important to ask the right questions and challenge the MDM provider if their answers leave you wondering if their solution is truly SaaS.