One company. Many systems. No forced collapse.
Metrolane is one enterprise, but its operational systems do not share one source schema.
CRM remains CRM.
ERP remains ERP.
Documents remain Documents.
Each system keeps its own IDs, terminology, status values and source-native structure.
The same business thing can appear several times
Suppose Metrolane deals with one customer.
CRM may have:
ERP may have:
Those can refer to the same enterprise organization.
But they are still different source records owned by different systems.
The source system keeps its own language
A source model may contain concepts such as:
Metrolane does not rename all of those records into one universal source schema.
Instead, it preserves them and builds shared enterprise semantics above them.
Kestrel
Kestrel Auto Retail currently appears through three source records:
The enterprise layer resolves them to
Source ID and canonical ID are different identities
- ACC-2026-900001 is a CRM source key.
- CUST-2026-000002 is an ERP source key.
- ORG-000012 is a canonical enterprise identity.
They are not interchangeable.
The canonical identity does not overwrite or replace the source identities.
Why preserve source quirks?
Because source-specific meaning matters.
Those are not automatically the same concept.
If Metrolane copied a source value into canonical data simply because the names looked similar, it could create a clean-looking but semantically false enterprise view.
Source-native context
Open:
The visitor can see:
- CRM Account
- source-native status
- source-native account type
- source-native billing country
- same-system CRM relationships
- cross-system link
- canonical resolution
Four identity layers to keep straight
A useful mental model is:
- 1. Source record identityCRM Account ACC-2026-900001
- 2. Operational linkCRM Account → ERP Customer
- 3. Canonical identityORG-000012
- 4. Canonical relationshipsrelationships between shared enterprise entities/objects
These layers may connect, but they mean different things.
Chapter takeaway
- Metrolane is one company, not one source schema.
- Each operational system keeps its own identity and semantics.
- Canonical identity sits above source identity rather than replacing it.
- This separation is what makes cross-system reasoning trustworthy.