Managing data
Create and manage your customer data model. Make sure that you identify the customer data that correlates to your business use case and that is aligned with the problem that you want to solve.
The Pega Customer Decision Hub application integrates your customer data to provide next best actions, execute marketing campaigns, and learn customer behavior using predictive and adaptive analytics.
Pega Platform is a highly flexible software development platform that provides tools to integrate your data by using widely available industry protocols.
The following diagram represents a typical Pega Customer Decision Hub implementation:
![Diagram showing data integration layer components in the client system and Pega](https://docs-previous.pega.com/sites/default/files/drupal/dita/out/1526/strategic-apps-implementation/Content/Resources/Images/pega-integration-layer.png)
The data in your systems of record is usually extracted to a data warehouse or data lake for internal purposes. Typically, only a portion of this data is required by the Pega Customer Decision Hub application. Pega accesses the required batch data by using dedicated Pega Customer Decision Hub data integration components. Real-time data can be accessed directly from systems of record using web services technology. Your project objectives and data latency requirements determine your data access implementation.
After the source data is identified, data is loaded to the out-of-the-box customer analytical data store. This process restructures the customer data as flattened data objects that maximize performance and scalability while ensuring data integrity. Designing the customer analytical data store is an important part of project initiation and should be done in conjunction with your business and implementation partners.
The customer analytical data store is also referred to as the Customer Analytics Record (CAR).
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