Emphasizing functionality, best-of-breed solution vendors often overlook how their applications fit into their customers' overall IT landscape. This paper explores the relative value of making technology decisions that support and maintain infrastructure-wide interoperability with regard to your data management solutions. Effective data management is critical for the smooth operation of any IT environment and has the ability to impact a wide range of applications and components within the infrastructure. Organizations that address data management with middleware solutions that work seamlessly with existing applications in the IT environment stand to benefit significantly.