Metadata Management
Metadata is more than just “data about data.” It is the useful description of a company’s business and technical information assets. Although metadata is not new, it has been receiving more attention recently as a critical element of effective information management because it allows you to identify and classify the various information assets within your organization.
A successful metadata management strategy ensures that the broadest possible portfolio of metadata is captured, collected, stored in a repository for use by multiple applications across your organization, and that inconsistencies and redundancies are removed. Essentially, metadata management imposes management discipline on the collection and control of metadata.
VIP can help you fully understand the implications of effective metadata management within your organization, and how it can enable effective information lifecycle management, data access, and business/IT alignment.
Roadmap & Strategy
VIP's proven approach begins first with analysis of your current environment, applications and business needs surrounding Metadata. We can help define high-level business, technical and administrative metadata solution requirements, and assess the advantages of building vs. buying a management system. The findings from the analysis will be documented as your current metadata architecture, identifying existing metadata sources and potential methods for metadata harvesting.
VIP will provide recommendations on approach, architecture, governance, risk assessment, etc., along with a Metadata roadmap and high-level project plan. In addition to leveraging our metadata experience, you will also be able to take advantage of our proven methodologies and templates.
Tool Selection
Some organizations approach metadata management as simply a tool selection process, believing it is possible to select an off-the-shelf repository product that will meet most, if not all, of their metadata needs. Other organizations overreach with a “big bang” approach to metadata management, striving to create one central metadata repository without considering the complexity that is involved in such an effort. VIP can lead you through this selection process resulting in the following deliverables:
- Identify a short list of metadata tools that meet your existing metadata requirements
- Coordinate and execute high-level vendor product demonstrations
- Construct and distribute a Metadata Tool RFP
- Review and Score Metadata Tool RFP Responses
- Coordinate and execute scripted metadata vendor demos
- Final metadata tool vendor scoring document
- Recommendations and Next Steps
