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What is Metadata Management?


Need to manage metadata management 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 governsMetadata Management 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 metadata 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.
Metadata management standards and best practices checklist
All information management metadata should be adequately controlled and documented in an approved and published metadata repository.
The business owner should maintain business metadata, including business rules, organizational metadata and transformational metadata. Business metadata should include: 
    • 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
The IT owner should maintain application metadata, including technical and physical metadata. Application data should include:
    • Who:
      • Maintains the application i.e. IT owner;
      • Maintains the database i.e. production DBA; and
      • Is responsible for change control
    • What:
      • 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
      • The data is stored e.g.
        • 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
Metadata best practices checklist

Metadata should be stored in an approved enterprise metadata repository that complies with an approved information technology standards list.
Appropriate backup and recovery processes and procedures should be created, approved and maintained.
The business owner of the data that the metadata supports for accuracy, timeliness, relevancy, consistency and validity should periodically review metadata
Maintenance of metadata (e.g., additions, deletions, modifications, etc.) should be assigned to a data steward and documented for reference purposes. This will ensure that appropriate segregation of duties exists and that the metadata remains accurate, timely, relevant, consistent and valid.  
qulAll changes to metadata shall follow a documented and approved change management process.
All metadata users should be assigned access rights and privileges.

Accountabilities for each key role involved in metadata management should be defined and communicated to all stakeholders.
Summary...

Metadata management is required to ensure successful management of information management. Standards and best practices should be defined and managed to ensure success.

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