People often buy an appliance, such as a home theatre system, and quickly connect it and plug it in, only to find that it does not work correctly. Only then do they remove the manual from its plastic covering. Without good metadata management, IT executives end up trying to run their businesses without the manual, with the result that software development and maintenance costs soar.
While the quick and ready metadata description is data about data, it really describes factors about systems and applications that enable a better understanding of these in the business. Typical metadata tells a business what applications are running, what data is in those applications, where they are running and what platforms they are using. When it comes to managing systems, metadata is king.
Metadata can typically be found in a number of places in the business:
* Mainframes
* Databases
* Object-oriented applications
* ERP software
* Extensible Markup Language (XML)
* Office automation documents
* Spreadsheets
Corporate SA is suffering metadata chaos due to undocumented systems, inconsistent elements, differing forms of sometimes unrecorded documentation and heavy reliance on tribal knowledge.
Julian Field, MD, Centerfield Software
The challenge of good metadata management begins with identifying its application in the business. Thereafter capturing becomes critical, followed by prioritising programs that will use it, then storing the metadata and creating a user interface.
But most South African organisations I have come across have little understanding of what metadata is, and where to find and how to use it. Corporate SA is suffering metadata chaos due to undocumented systems, inconsistent elements, differing forms of sometimes unrecorded documentation and heavy reliance on tribal knowledge. That said, there is at least one large organisation in SA that already has professionals dedicated to metadata management.
Part of the local metadata management problem is that IT vendors are not punting it. It is a difficult project to justify for customers demanding immediate return on investment. But good metadata management delivers long-term returns as it becomes entrenched in every system and is put to good business use.
Some of the uses metadata can be put to:
* Delivering consistently accurate strategic information
* Sharing information with customers and partners
* Reducing software development cycles
But due to the generally poor understanding of metadata and its management, the road leading to these goals can be fraught with peril, unless IT executives take heed of the critical success factors:
* Buy-in from top business executives and management
* User buy-in
* Predetermined strategic business requirements
* Performance measurement and evaluation
* Aligning the business data model and metadata architecture
These critical factors then rely on technology to underpin the delivery of sound metadata management. But if they are not clearly defined then finding the right technology to meet organisational needs will prove difficult, if not impossible.
There are a host of characteristics that such technology requires: essentially it must be able to perform well, operate across multiple platforms, easily integrate, offer customisable interfaces and offer a good management environment.
Without these characteristics in the technology and tools, the metadata management project teams will not be able to use their skills and knowledge to properly apply the correct methodology.
Metadata management`s scope encompasses the entire business and is the single most important point where technology and business strategies either collide or drive the business forward. Getting it right means knowing what systems are where, what they are doing and what resources they are using; making the job of updating or changing software more efficient, saving time, costs and ensuring a greater degree of project success.
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