A

base object

(sometimes abbreviated as

BO

) is a table in the Hub Store that is used to describe central business entities, such as customers, accounts, products, employees, and so on. The base object is the end-point for consolidating data from multiple source systems. In a Informatica MDM Hub implementation, the

schema

(or data model) for an organization typically includes a collection of base objects.

The goal in Informatica MDM Hub is to create the

master record

for each instance of each unique entity within a base object. The master record contains the

best version of the truth

(abbreviated as

BVT

), which is a record that has been consolidated with the best, most-trustworthy cell values from the source records. For example, for a Customer base object, you want to end up with a master record for each individual customer. The master record in the base object contains the best version of the truth for that customer.