What's new and changed in IBM Match 360

Installing or upgrading IBM Match 360

Cloud Pak for Data Version 4.7.4

A new version of IBM Match 360 was released in October 2023 with Cloud Pak for Data 4.7.4.

• Operand version: 3.2.38
• CASE version: 3.2.0

This release includes the following changes:

Performance and stability improvements

This release includes a number of performance, stability, and resiliency enhancements to improve the speed and reliability of the IBM Match 360 service. These enhancements include:

• Performance improvements for matching and data load operations.
• Stability and reliability improvements for event streaming, incremental loading, and ongoing synchronization capabilities.

Bug fixes

The 3.2.38 release of the IBM Match 360 service includes the following fixes:

• Issue: When you activate an IBM Match 360 configuration snapshot that includes a data model, the draft version of the data model does not get updated.
  Resolution: The draft data model now gets updated as expected when you activate a configuration snapshot.
• Issue: After restoring IBM Match 360 from an online backup, the associated IBM Aspera pods can fail to initialize.
  Resolution: Aspera is no longer included in the IBM Match
  360 service.
• Issue: After restoring IBM Match 360 from an online backup, the associated Redis pods can enter a CrashLoopBackOff state.
  Resolution: The configuration has been updated so that this problem no longer occurs.
• Issue: After restoring IBM Match 360 from an offline backup, the associated Redis pods can enter a CrashLoopBackOff state.
  Resolution: The configuration has been updated so that this problem no longer occurs.
• Issue: Retrieving an entity from the database can take longer than expected.
  Resolution: The configuration of the data microservice was updated to improve performance.
• Issue: Issues can arise when dealing with large entities during matching.
  Resolution: The matching engine was updated to limit large entities and improve the way they are handled during matching operations.
• Issue: During ongoing synchronization operations, the API can timeout and leave some records improperly unassigned to entities.
  Resolution: The Elasticsearch configuration was updated to avoid timeout issues in IBM Match 360.
• Issue: Master data streaming through Apache Kafka can unexpectedly drop or duplicate messages.
  Resolution: The data streaming configuration was tuned and improved to resolve this issue.
• Issue: Navigation from the master data home page to the configuration page can fail if the user has access to a large amount of projects.
  Resolution: The configuration was updated to resolve this problem.

Security fixes

The 3.2.38 release of the IBM Match 360 service includes various security fixes, including fixes for the following issues:

CVE-2023-28867
CVE-2023-38737

Deprecated features

The 3.2.38 release of the IBM Match 360 service has the following deprecated features or components:

• IBM Aspera®: Beginning in Cloud Pak for Data 4.7.4, IBM Match 360 no longer includes IBM Aspera as part of its installation and configuration. Aspera is still used for ongoing synchronization with data from MDM Publisher, but the Aspera installation files are now packaged as part of the IBM InfoSphere® Master Data Management product.

Cloud Pak for Data Version 4.7.1

A new version of IBM Match 360 was released in July 2023 with Cloud Pak for Data 4.7.1.

• Operand version: 3.1.25
• CASE version: 3.1.0

This release includes the following changes:

New features

The 3.1.25 release of IBM Match 360 includes the following features and updates:

Help prevent the creation of low-quality entities by defining glue record thresholds

This release of IBM Match 360 introduces a new glue record threshold configuration to help prevent the creation of poor quality entities. When IBM Match 360 forms entities through matching, some low-quality records can act as glue records. Because the records are not very detailed, glue records can appear to match with many different records. This matching behavior inadvertently and incorrectly creates very large entities that have only one low-quality glue record in common.

By setting a glue record threshold in the matching algorithm for each entity type, a data engineer can prevent glue records from causing the formation of large, poorly matched entities. For more information, see Configuring a glue record threshold.

Finer control over which records are considered for matching

You can now define filters that determine which records are considered during the matching process. By default, all records associated with the entity’s record type are considered during matching. However, with record filtering, you can create rules that remove unwanted records from consideration, based on their attribute values.

For example, if you are matching person entity data but want to match only records that are based in the United States, you can define a record filter on the Country attribute so that the matching engine considers only records with US-based addresses.

For more information, see Selecting which records get considered for matching and Matching algorithms > Entity types (bucketing).

More control over how entities select attribute values from member records

With the enhanced attribute composition capabilities, data engineers have more control over how the attribute values for master data entities are selected from the entity's member records. You can now define filter and sorting conditions that control which records are considered and how attributes are selected for an entity. For attributes that can potentially include more than one value, such as a list, you can configure the maximum number of values.

By defining and prioritizing a set of rules, filters, and other conditions, you have more control over which record attribute values are surfaced to the entity. For more information, see Defining attribute composition rules.

Bug fixes

The 3.1.25 release of the IBM Match 360 service includes the following fixes:

• Issue: When viewing master data in an IBM Match 360 connection asset, row filter masking rules do not work.
  Resolution: Row filter masking rules are now correctly applied to IBM Match
  360 connection assets.
• Issue: While upgrading IBM Match 360, Elasticsearch pods can remain in a 1/2 Running state, causing IBM Match 360 to remain in an InProgress state.
  Resolution: The configuration of IBM Match
  360 was updated to resolve this issue.
• Issue: IBM Match 360 requires special configuration to load data from MDM Publisher.
  Resolution: Required configuration steps are now part of MDM Publisher setup and configuration. For more information, see the InfoSphere MDM documentation.
• Issue: When exporting record or entity data from IBM Match 360 by using the master data explorer UI, the export fails if the resulting file is larger than 512 MB.
  Resolution: The file size limitation was removed.
• Issue: When exporting record or entity data from IBM Match 360 by using the API, the export fails if the resulting file is in ZIP format and larger than 4 GB.
  Resolution: The file size limitation was removed.
• Issue: A timeout error can occur in successful offline backup and restore operations.
  Resolution: The timeout configuration was changed to help prevent this issue from occurring.
• Issue: IBM Match 360 connections do not support secrets from vaults.
  Resolution: Secrets from vaults are now supported with specific configurations. To use vaults, you must use keys to create credentials in the vault.

Security fixes

The 3.1.25 release of the IBM Match 360 service includes various security fixes, including fixes for the following issues:

CVE-2019-10202
CVE-2019-10172
CVE-2020-13936
CVE-2020-14422

Cloud Pak for Data Version 4.7.0

A new version of IBM Match 360 was released in June 2023 with Cloud Pak for Data 4.7.0.

• Operand version: 3.0.55
• CASE version: 3.0.18

This release includes the following changes:

New features

The 3.0.55 release of IBM Match 360 includes the following features and updates:

New data quality workflow helps data stewards remediate potential match issues

Use the new IBM Match 360 potential matches workflow to fix potential matching issues in your master data. Streamline your data stewards' workflow by defining the range of matching scores that qualifies for clerical review, then create governance tasks to help data stewards make decisions that enhance confidence in your master data.

The potential matches workflow provides the framework that data stewards can use to:

• Quickly generate governance tasks for potential matching issues in your data or a subset of your data.
• Review and remediate the generated tasks by making match or no-match decisions on records for which the matching algorithm cannot make a confident matching decision.

For information on configuring the potential matches workflow, see Configuring master data workflows.

For information on identifying, reviewing, and remediating potential match issues, see Remediating potential matches to improve data quality.

New data quality dimension measures entity confidence

IBM Match 360 now contributes a new entity confidence data quality dimension to the Data quality tab for an asset in a project. Entity confidence measures the percentage of master data entities in the system that IBM Match 360 is confident are complete and accurate. You can improve an asset's entity confidence score by tuning your matching algorithm or remediating potential match issues.

For more information about entity confidence, see Remediating potential matches to improve data quality.

IBM Match 360 protects sensitive data according to governance rules

When you associate IBM Match 360 with a governed data catalog that uses data protection rules, IBM Match 360 enforces the rules by masking sensitive data.

When you are working with governed data assets in the master data explorer, a shield icon on an attribute name indicates that its values are masked by a data protection rule. Governed data is also protected when it is accessed through the IBM Match 360 API.

For more information about using data protection rules with IBM Match 360, see Working with governed data in IBM Match 360.

Stream change events from your master data to downstream systems

Now IBM Match 360 can, in real time, propagate changes in your record and entity data directly to downstream systems through a connected Apache Kafka server. Streaming ensures that your users and systems always have the freshest and most up-to-date master data. Master data streaming is available only through the IBM Match 360 API.

For more information, see Streaming record and entity data changes.

Define entity attributes that persist with entities

This release introduces a new type of attribute that is saved directly on your master data entities, rather than being composited from their member records. Customize the data model of your entity types to add new entity attribute definitions, then edit individual entities to specify the attribute values.

Rather than relying on only record data to provide entity attribute values, the ability to specifically define entity attributes gives organizations the flexibility to store, capture, and manage digital twin attributes for each entity to better track behavior indicators, engagement preferences, and other key customer data points.

For more information about entity attributes, see Data concepts in IBM Match 360.

Bug fixes

The 3.0.55 release of the IBM Match 360 service includes the following fixes:

• Issue: Exported IBM Match 360 relationship data is missing some columns.
  Resolution: All of the expected data, including relationship numbers and system audit attributes, are now included in exported relationship data assets.
• Issue: IBM Match 360 operations can fail due to an Elasticsearch connection timeout issue.
  Resolution: The connection to Elasticsearch was optimized to prevent the timeout from occurring.
• Issue: After upgrading from Cloud Pak for Data 4.6.0 to 4.6.4, the RabbitMQ pod can enter an error state.
  Resolution: The IBM Match 360 configuration was updated to resolve this problem.

Security fixes

The 3.0.55 release of the IBM Match 360 service includes fixes for the following security issues:

CVE-2022-1471
CVE-2022-3697
CVE-2022-41721
CVE-2022-41723
CVE-2015-3627
CVE-2022-23471
CVE-2023-25153
CVE-2023-25173