Darren from ASG presented next on Metadata enabled Business/IT Integration. Business metadata can be contained in all sorts of things like data models, XML and database schemas, process definitions, ERP/CRM etc. Not clear who created what or which ones are “right” and things like mergers and acquisitions may create new problems. There is no “right” answer either in terms of an approach or in terms of a piece of metadata - context is really important.

Business metadata initially comes from a business glossary that is used enterprise wide or from a more specialized area. Storing and managing these lists and communities of interest is interesting but it must be linked to physical implementation to be come truly useful. Business rules are also a great source of business metadata as are MDM/CDI projects and definitions, ETL transformations and more.

The basic approach ASG takes is to manage business nomenclature such that terms are not only linked to things like glossaries and to each other (preferred or narrower links) but also to physical objects managed in the repository. Facts and concepts from source business rules also can be integrated. Presumably production rules could be stored, linked to the physical implementations and thus the links to source rules validated and managed. ASG can import metadata from various source systems, track data lineage and transformation etc. These loaded, technical information can then be hooked up to the business level items. Their repository also supports a flexible and extensible metamodel.