ZIFFPAGE TITLER

The auto data aggregator ditched its mainframe, spending more than $20 million to build a data factory. Was it worth it?

.L. Polk & Co. Base Case">

R.L. Polk & Co. Base Case

HEADQUARTERS: 26955 Northwestern Hwy., Southfield, MI 48034
PHONE: (248) 728-7000
BUSINESS: Collects and sells vehicle sales and registration data.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER: Kevin Vasconi
REVENUE, 2005: $275 million (Baseline estimate)
CHALLENGES: Improve efficiency and speed up the process of
turning raw data into packaged information products.

BASELINE GOALS:

• Reduce time to process incoming data by 50% from 2004 to 2006.
• Cut administrative costs by 50% over the same period.
• Strive for 100% data accuracy over the same period.
  
  

  Inside the Data factory R.L. Polk's new data-processing system uses a service-oriented architecture to coordinate tasks among several discrete clusters of servers. Data is fed from 260 different sources. Software converts the data into standard eXtensible Markup Language documents. Service-orchestration software evaluates each XML document and determines which elements need additional processing (i.e., appending ZIP+4 code). At the same time, data-quality software compares incoming information with a historical profile of what's normal for that type of data; exceptions are investigated. Processed data is inserted into a database repository, Polk's single source of truth; from there, information is extracted into separate data warehouses for customer to access.