Building and Managing the Meta Data Repository: Full Life Cycle Guide

Written By: David Marco

When we first started building computer systems in the 1950s and 1960s, we realized that a "bunch of stuff" (knowledge) was needed to build, use, and maintain these systems.  But we didn't know how to integrate this computer system's knowledge with "the other stuff" we needed to know about the markets and industries that we were competing in.  Fortunately, over time we learned that what our information systems needed was data about the business data we were using.  In other words, we need meta data.

When we talk about meta data, we are really talking about knowledge.  Knowledge of our sytems, business, competition, customres, products, and markets.  In our era such knowledge can provide the competitive edge that determines business success or failure.  In this era, more than ever before, companies must be smarter than their competitors in order to survive and, hopefully thrive.  Meta data can provide a very real competitive edge, but only if we thoroughly understand it and know how to use it effectively.