Metadata goes Data Warehousing
Abstract
Data warehouses (DWH) and operational data stores (ODS) have been playing a considerable role in IT environments of larger organizations since the mid-nineties. In spite of numerous projects and a tremendous effort, most companies have not been successful in documenting their steadily growing amount of data in an appropriate way. Initiatives trying to cope with this deficiency were mostly driven by the IT departments and failed due to a lack of business content orientation and business support. Their approach was often too technically oriented and too detailed in striving for perfection that they were unable to deliver lasting solutions which could be embedded in their organization. Data governance standards and requirements cannot be fulfilled because insufficiently documented, seemingly highly complex DWH/ODS infrastructures are often reality in today’s sophisticated IT landscapes. In addition, most of these ODS/DWH infrastructures are meanwhile technologically outdated and need to be urgently replaced. Without a sufficient content documentation of these ODS/DWH infrastructures, appropriate undertakings are difficult to plan and bear various risks.
The methodology developed during this research project has been field-tested and is adaptable to different settings in an organization leading a pragmatic way out of this difficult situation. Expensive tools or repository software packages are renounced in order to get away from technology driven IT approaches while giving business focus a chance to survive and deliver an ongoing added value to business and IT professionals alike. The existing IS infrastructure is to be utilized as much as possible so as to be able to spend as much of the limited resources for the capture und provision of the urgently needed metadata.
It is revealed, how a new beginning in the discipline of metadata management can be launched, leading organizations into a new reality where confidence in further data management initiatives is growing.
Download from University of St. Gallen, Switzerland