Microsoft's solution for data quality, introduced in SQL Server 2012 and named Data Quality Services (DQS), is a service-based application that works based on knowledge-base-driven data quality. Knowledge-base-driven data quality works with Knowledge Bases that consist of domains. Knowledge Bases will be maintained with the business user named data steward. A data steward is someone who knows the domains of the business and can maintain the best quality Knowledge Base for that business. DQS also comes with a functionality to create data-matching rules and apply these rules on the data. The following diagram shows the Data Quality Services process (sourced from Microsoft):

The Knowledge Base can get data from cloud services such as Windows Azure Marketplace, which is called reference data, or it can be created and maintained by a data steward. The process of knowledge discovery, managing knowledge, correction, and matching is like a cycle, and will enhance the Knowledge...