The DCE is a suite of software application programs that facilitate the clustering process using userdefined rules together with SSA-NAME3 search and matching technology.

The DCE reads input files and produces a database containing clustered records. The clusters can be output to reports and/or read directly via an Application Programming Interface.

The DCE consists of:

The core of the DCE consists of a Rulebase and a Database. During the clustering process, the Rulebase is loaded with information pertaining to how the data should be matched combined with the SSANAME3 algorithms to be used for , Searching and Matching. The Database is loaded with records from input file(s).

The Input File Processor and sort-merge utilities can be used to help load the database and optimize its efficiency. The Input File Processor can reformat and restructure the input data for better clustering. The Sort-Merge utilities can be used to sort the input file by key value. Loading the database in this sequence helps to optimize I/O performance while clustering the data.

The Report and Statistics Generator helps to produce reports from the clustered data which can be viewed from the DCE Console using the integrated report viewer tool.