Data Integration: Data integration may be one of the biggest problems today in regards to the alignment of the IT with business requirements. All the projects (enterprise resource planning, data warehouses, data marts, operational data stores, etc), I have been involved with are at one level data integration projects. Two concepts are required for a truly integrated business, a solid data model and centralized meta data repository. I have been involved with both. The real challenge is to understand how any development or improvement project fits into the business as a whole. See Enterprise Architecture.