irmac metadata sig round-table best and worst practises notes from the session of january 8, 2003...
TRANSCRIPT
IRMAC Metadata SIG Round-Table
Best and Worst Practises
Notes from the session ofJanuary 8, 2003Facilitator: Alana Boltwood, (Ontario) Management Board Secretariat
Agenda
4:30 Introduction & Announcements4:45 Presentations (5 min each) and
Discussions (5 min each) Gair Anderson, Alana Boltwood, Suzanne Bond,
Frank McCormick, Todd Moore, Zahid Kamal, Katrina Easton, Ted Crouse, Don MacLeod
6:05 Review & Evaluation6:30 Dinner
Wilshire Award for Metadata Management
Second Annual Wilshire Conferences Best Practices Award for Meta Data Management
Call for Submissions www.wilshireconferences.com/award Nominations due February 28, 2003
formally presented at the Wilshire Meta-Data Conference, April 27-May 1, 2003, in Orlando, Florida.
Last year's inaugural Wilshire Award winner was RBC Financial Services, of Toronto, Canada
Context information
At several former employers, Meta data management and the population of the repository were stalled or even cancelled
Best Practise
DO NOT view a repository as a TOOL. It is an APPLICATION, and needs all
the disciplines and care that any other business application needs.
The Repository’s ongoing management of Meta data is equivalent to an HR system’s on going management of Staff data or an Inventory system’s ongoing management
of Product on hand data.
Context information
ROLAP query tool was powerful, but its metadata layer was not well-architected
Manual maintenance of metadata layer required extensive training by a specialized consultant
Best Practise
When buying data-processing software, evaluate whether the metadata layer is logically organized (normalized). Obtain its data model.
Context information
many systems were developed piecemeal
no standards applied - programmers did their own thing
definitions either missing or useless
Worst Practice
lack of standards in naming and definitions synonyms, homonyms, unusual
terminology “Contract Number is the number of the
contract” “Net Amount is a 7 digit number with 2
decimal places”
Current Assignment
Developing Naming, Data Definition, Business Rule and Data Mapping Standards.
Building our own Metadata Repository (in its infancy).
Have used Repository on one pilot project thus far.
Worst Practice (Prior Contract)
Allowing Systems personnel to bypass established Data Management standards for naming Reference and Element Entities and setting up Data Definitions.
Royal Bank of Canada
Todd MooreProject Manager – Metadata ManagementEnterprise Information Solutions
Royal Bank Data Dictionaries
The bank has had pockets of metadata all over the organization.
The repository is being used to capture as much of these pockets of metadata into a central location.
Data Dictionary metadata appears to be the most important to business users – some specific technical metadata is second.
Business users require information on what the data means and where it comes from.
Best Practice – Data Dictionary
If you build it – They will come.Populate with whatever you have – then
develop the process to improve it.Allow the metadata to be easily
maintained by an administrator/business steward.
Make the metadata accessible. Easily accessible!
Give all users an opportunity to be part of the improvement process – Easily.
Best Practise
Including a metadata deliverable, and defining a metadata manager role, right from the start of a project, should be considered a key best practise.
Context information
Business Analysts document data requirements (field by field), in Excel, before modeller gets involved
Business people are comfortable with Excel format
Source to target transformations are documented in Excel
Problem: How do we get this metadata into the data model where it belongs?
Good Practice
Our solution: one- co-op student who can program Student created programs which:
Load Excel spreadsheet (meta)data to a new data model Load Excel spreadsheet (meta)data to an existing data
model – so we can update definitions, datatypes, etc.. Verify that physical naming conventions have been
applied (limited functionality at the moment)
Benefits: BA’s are happy Transparent for business people Data modellers are happy – metadata is where it belongs
Adastra Corporation
Ted CrouseDirector Business Intelligence
Adastra Corporation
8500 Leslie St., Markham
Ontario, L3T 7M8 Canada
Tel. 905 881 7946
Fax 905 881 4782
www.adastracorp.com
Context information
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, two offices in Europe
We are a DW Product and Services Company delivering all components of the DW Solution.
Most of our Metadata is captured through the use of traditional tools; Modeling tools, ETL tools, Reporting tools.
Currently introduced is the capture of full PROCESS Metadata as well as traditional ‘business’ definition Metadata.
Project Practice
Metadata is involved in the Initialization phase to the QA and Project Completion phase. Too many organizations miss all available Process and Technical Metadata.
Once Metadata standards are introduced in the Project, phase transfers, roll-overs, and overall understandings within the full life cycle are met.
Thus enabling proper business process tracking, project information transfer, and fluid phase transitioning.
Government of Ontario
Don MacLeodMetadata Projects LeadOffice of the Corporate Chief Information Officer and Archives of Ontario
Context information
I&IT Strategy centralized Ontario Public Service IT management
Architecture efforts include data & metadata management, for structured data and unstructured documents
A corporate metadata strategy should consider the whole range of targets
Enterprise Architecture World (UnderDevelopment) – May be OPS specific Enterprise (as in sense of the whole of a
context for an architecture) Architecture Framework Primitive Artifacts Composite ModelsGeneric Business Architecture World Core Business (e.g., Road User Safety) Program (e.g., Safety and Regulation) Service (e.g., Driver licensing) Service Event Sets (the various component
transaction sets related to variants within theservice [e.g., license renewal] that make upwhole delivery of the service)
Service Event (any one of the ordered eventsthat make up a transactional set)
Integrated Service Delivery World Includes components of Generic Business
Architecture World plus: Service Channel (as a whole)
Service Channel Instance (meaning eachdiscrete physical manifestation, i.e., one helpdesk location, one service counter location,one point of entry in an web-based portal)
Service Delivery Instance (bundlingsubsequent events from beginning to end ofan client-specific service delivery)
Service Event Instance (Any occurrence ofan event within the transactional chain fromfirst to last)
Event-Related Information Capture Instance(Any physical capture of event-relatedinformation at any point from front end toback end, constituting a record)
Personalized Content Views Subscribed Content ViewsInformation Modeling World (ER) Models Diagrams Entities Attributes Domains Relationships
Information Modeling World (O-O) Model Diagram Classes Attributes Data Types Operations AssociationsXML World XML Schemas (because they, too, need to
be described, controlled)Multi-Dimensional World (TBD)Unstructured Records World File Classifications “Series” (total body of records re a service
transaction or additionally defined by mediaand/or application)
Sub-series Folder Folder Volume Record Discrete objects within records Parseable document elements (within semi-
structured records)
Publications World Collections Publications Serial IssuesIntranet World (TBD)Physical Application World (Under
Development) System (as a whole) Component Data Stores / System Services
(supporting individual transaction sets) Network Components Network Domains Databases Tables Columns Records (as manifestations of queries made
against the database) Record FieldMetadata Repository World Metadata Repository (meaning repository in
broadest sense of container for metadata,which could include data dictionaries andindexes)
Metadata Field (for each of the above) Metadata Record (for each of the above) Metadata Element within Metadata Records
(for each of the above)
Tips on Metadata Repositories
Metadata repository should be viewed as a hub, an application
Allow repository users to enter comments on metadata (send to administrators for updates)
Track which metadata is frequently used in a repository
Buy an extensible repositoryCapture of metadata should be easy and
preferably automated
Promoting metadata management to executives
Refer to the potential loss of corporate memory
Call it Knowledge ManagementStart with the metadata most in
demandTrack # of hits on repository website
Other Discussions
Vendors should be encouraged to write (XML) export routines for their (proprietory or open) metadata
Co-op students can write “patches” to solve import-export problems
When implementing package software, write in-house definitions (e.g. Company = Store)