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Managing master data by using IBM Match 360
Last updated: Feb 21, 2025
Managing master data by using IBM Match 360

Use the IBM Match 360 with Watson (beta) service on Cloud Pak for Data as a Service to consolidate data from the disparate sources that fuel your business and establish a single, trusted, 360-degree view of your customers.

IBM Match 360 helps you to resolve data records across different sources to give you a clearer view of each customer. Load record data from systems across your enterprise into IBM Match 360 and run matching algorithms to consolidate that data by creating trusted master data entities. After you match your data, IBM Match 360 shows statistics and graphs to help business users to analyze and explore your master data.

For more information about master data management, see Data intelligence use case. To complete a tutorial that will help to familiarize you with IBM Match 360, see Master data management tutorial: Configure a 360-degree view.

IBM Match 360 is available in the Dallas (us-south) regional data center.

Required service
IBM Knowledge Catalog
Supplemental services
IBM Knowledge Catalog
Related services
DataStage
Data format
Record data: CSV, TSV, or PSV (delimited)
Data models: JSON
Data size
Up to 1,000,000 records (for the Lite plan)
Restriction:

The IBM Match 360 with Watson Lite plan lets you create one service instance per account and process up to one million records. Services with the Lite plan are active for 60 days. Lite plan services will be deleted after 30 days of inactivity.

The following image shows an example scenario in which IBM Match 360 creates trusted master data entities by matching data from across an organization.

Match record data from multiple sources across your organization to create trusted master data entities
Matching overview

The IBM Match 360 service includes two connected and complementary user experiences: master data configuration and master data workspace.

IBM Match 360 user experiences
IBM Match 360 user experience User group permissions Actions
Master data configuration DataEngineer Prepare and configure master data:
- Configure the IBM Match 360 service's master data configuration asset.
- Upload data assets or connect data sources.
- Refine the generated data model.
- Map data into the model.
- Run the IBM Match 360 service's powerful matching capability to create master data entities.
- Configure and tune the matching algorithm to meet your organization's requirements.
Master data workspace DataSteward Search, view, analyze, add, edit, and export master data entities and records.
Master data workspace EntityViewer
(business user)		 Search, view, and analyze master data entities and records.
Pair review DataSteward
DataEngineer		 Review pairs of records to help train and tune the matching algorithm.

In this topic:

Prerequisites

To use the full capabilities of IBM Match 360, you must:

  • Have the IBM Knowledge Catalog service
  • Associate a catalog with your IBM Match 360 service instance

Without IBM Knowledge Catalog, key IBM Match 360 capabilities such as profiling, automapping, data quality workflows, and data governance will not work. Other features of the IBM Match 360 service will function normally.

Before you can match data using IBM Match 360, you need to create a project.

Optionally, create a connection to IBM Cloud Object Storage, and then add connected data assets from the connection.

Accessing the service

Before attempting to access the service, ensure that you have an appropriate service instance role. For details, see Giving users access to IBM Match 360.

There is more than one way to access the IBM Match 360 service:

  • From the Cloud Pak for Data home page navigation menu, select Data > Master data.

  • From the Your services card on the home page, click the service name associated with your IBM Match 360 service instance.

  • From the Service instances page:

    1. Log in to dataplatform.cloud.ibm.com.
    2. Under My services, click View all to open the service instances associated with your account.
    3. Click your IBM Match 360 service instance to open the IBM Match 360 Launch page.
    4. Click Launch to open the master data home page.

You can also connect to and work with your master data by using the IBM Match 360 REST APIs. For more information, see the API reference documentation in the IBM Cloud API and SDK reference library.

After starting IBM Match 360, use the Master data navigation menu to access the service's tools and capabilities.

You can show the full navigation menu by clicking the open icon menu open icon.

You can minimize the navigation menu by clicking the close icon menu close icon.

Learn more

For more information about using the service and related API, see the following topics:

Parent topic: Preparing data