Metadata Management
At the recent meeting of the G8 in Northern Ireland, the members released the Open Data Charter. The Charter recognizes the central role open data can play in improving government and governance and in stimulating growth through innovation in data-driven products and services. On the principle of quality, the goal of the charter is to ensure that releases of “high-quality open data that are timely, comprehensive, and accurate. To the extent possible, data will be in their original, unmodified form and at the finest level of granularity available.”
High levels of granularity support more structured information and allow more technical manipulation while metadata with levels of low granularity can be created for much less cost but provide less detailed information. Granularity impacts creation and capture. However, the greatest impact of granularity is in maintenance. As the metadata structures become outdated, access to the referred data will become much harder to manage. To enable continued access to the reference data, Enterprise Architect helps to manage the structure and transformation of the metadata, from one structure to another as new systems get developed.
A metadata repository enables collection, storage, maintenance, and dissemination of metadata information and Enterprise Architect is a powerful and inexpensive repository tool that can be used with a variety of databases including:
- SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008
- MySQL 4 or 5
- PostgreSQL 7 or 8
- Adaptive Server Anywhere 8 or 9, or SQL Anywhere 10 or 11
- Access 2007
- Progress OpenEdge
- MSDE or
- Oracle 9i, 10g or 11g
By default, Enterprise Architect stores its repository data in a .eap file.
