Query regarding master and transactional data

Hi Experts,

All of the ERP's use some of other kind of Master Data or Reference Data for any operation. For e.g., Product Master, Customer Master, Company Master, Location Master can be termed as master data. One Master might be requiring one or more tables. For e.g., Product Master might be maintained by 1 table or might be maitained using two or more tables depending upon the implementation (By saying Product Master I meant on information about the Product which will be used as reference by the organization).

As far as my knowledge, please correct me if i'm wrong, all this master data is maintained in the same physical Database where your Transactional Data is kept. If also the physical database is not the same, still the ERP or Mainframe particularly controls the Database.

Now, my question is,

Is it possible for the ERP to pull reference data from some other system without affecting the Transactional operations ?

i.e., What I mean is if I keep the Master table in some seperate database to which ERP can connect then is it possible to tell ERP that "Boss your reference data is not in this database but in other database. Please use the master data from that database"

Please respond with whatever I/Ps u have.

Appropriate points will be rewarded.