A Global Business Identifier (GBID) column contains common identifiers (key values) that allow you to uniquely and globally identify a record based on your business needs. Examples include:

Identifiers defined by applications external to the
MDM Hub
, such as ERP (SAP or Siebel customer numbers) or CRM systems.
Identifiers defined by external organizations, such as industry-specific codes (AMA numbers, DEA numbers. and so on), or government-issued identifiers (social security number, tax ID number, driver’s license number, and so on).

In the Schema Manager, you can define multiple GBID columns in a base object. For example, an employee table might have columns for social security number and driver’s license number, or a vendor table might have a tax ID number.

A Master Identifier (MID) is a common identifier that is generated by a system of reference or system of record that is used by others (for example, CIF, legacy hubs, the

MDM Hub

, counterparty hub, and so on). In the

MDM Hub

, the MID is the ROWID_OBJECT, which uniquely identifies individual records from various source systems.

GBIDs do not replace the ROWID_OBJECT. GBIDs provide additional ways to help you integrate your MDM Hub implementation with external systems, allowing you to query and access data through unique identifiers of your own choosing (using SIF requests, as described in the

Multidomain MDM Services Integration Framework Guide

). In addition, by configuring GBID columns using already-defined identifiers, you can avoid the need to custom-define identifiers.

GBIDs help with the

traceability

of your data. Traceability is keeping track of the data so that you can determine its

lineage

—which systems, and which records from those systems, contributed to consolidated records. When you define GBID columns in a base object, the Schema Manager creates two columns in the cross-reference table,

<GBID_column_name>

and

<GBID_column_name>

_GOV, to track the current and original GBID values.

For example, suppose two of your customers (both of which had different tax ID numbers) merged into a single company, and one tax ID number survived while the other one became obsolete. If you defined the taxID number column as a GBID, the

MDM Hub

could help you track both the current and historical tax ID numbers so that you could access data (via SIF requests) using the historical value.