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Meta Data
Need
to review information management meta data and want practical standards
and best practices for information management governance and
accountability?
What
is data management?
Data management is a sub-set of information management that governs
organization and control of the structure and design, storage,
movement, security and quality of information.
What
is metadata?
Metadata
is data describing or specifying other data or defining and organizing
characteristics that need to be known about data, including (but not
limited to) information about physical data representations, technical
and business processes, rules and constraints, and data
structures.
What
is metadata management?
Appropriate
meta data management practices enable information used by management in
its daily decision-making and in its long-term strategic planning to be
accurate, accessible, complete, consistent, timely, valid and relevant
and assists in maintaining high integrity over production data.
Information management
strategy meta data checklist
Be sure to address most of the following items while completing this
portion of the information management strategy study. This will help
formulate requirements for change.
 Is
information management metadata adequately controlled and
documented in an approved and published metadata repository.
Do business owners maintain
business metadata, including
business
rules, organizational metadata and transformational metadata.
Does business
metadata describe:
- Who:
- Owns the data i.e. data guardian;
- Maintains the data i.e. data steward;
- What
the data means i.e. entity, attribute
definitions and sample data;
- Where:
- The data comes from i.e. how is it
collected;
- The data is stored i.e. application
system;
- When
data is collected i.e. OLTP, daily feed,
monthly feed; and
- How is it used e.g. management information,
marketing analytics
Does the IT
owner maintain application
metadata, including technical and physical metadata?
Does application data describe:
- Who:
- Maintains
the application i.e. IT owner;
- Maintains the database i.e. production DBA;
and
- Is responsible for change control
- The data
looks
like e.g. logical/physical
data models;
- The data means e.g. table/column
definitions, and sample data;
- The data profile looks like e.g. for each
table and column, the number of rows, min/max values, distinct values
- Interfaces feed into and feed out of the
application
- Where:
- The data originates from e.g. system of
record
- Server
- Database name
- IP address
- The data goes to e.g. downstream
systems/applications
- It is archived including near and off-site
storage
- When
it is updated; backed-up, archived, stored
off-site
- How it is moved between applications e.g.
transfer mechanisms
Is metadata stored in an approved enterprise metadata repository that
complies with an approved information technology standards list?
Are
appropriate backup and recovery
processes and procedures available, approved and maintained?
Is the
business owner of the data that the metadata supports for accuracy,
timeliness, relevancy, consistency and validity, involved in periodic
meta data reviews?
How is meta data maintained? e.g.,
are additions, deletions, modifications, etc. assigned to a data
steward and documented for reference
purposes?
Do
changes to metadata follow a
documented and approved change management process?
Are
metadata users assigned
access rights and privileges?
Are accountabilities
for each key role
involved in metadata management defined and communicated to all
stakeholders?
Summary...
Meta
data is required to ensure successful management of information
management. It is critical to understand the "as is" situation to
determine what changes may be required to ensure successful information
management.
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