Core data integration is the use of data integration technology for a significant, centrally planned and managed IT initiative within a company. Examples of core data integration initiatives could include: ETL (Extract, transform, load) implementations EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) implementations SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) implementations ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) implementations Core data integrations are often designed to be enterprise-wide integration solutions. They may be designed to provide a data abstraction layer, which in turn will be used by individual core data integration implementations, such as ETL servers or applications integrated through EAI. Because it is difficult to promptly roll out a centrally managed data integration solution that anticipates and meets all data integration requirements across an organization, IT engineers and even business users create edge data integration, using technology that may be incompatible with that used at the core. In contrast to a core data integration, an edge data integration is not centrally planned and is generally completed with a smaller budget and a tighter deadline. See also data integration edge data integration References https://web.archive.org/web/20080310212808/http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid26_gci1171085,00.html Data management Data integration