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

Canadian Tire Corporation

Gair AndersonApplication and Data ArchitectA&D Architecture

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.

An insurance company

Former employer ofAlana Boltwood as aData Warehouse Systems Analyst

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.

Suzanne BondSenior Data Analyst

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”

Frank McCormickData AnalystInformation Technology Services

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.

Discussion

What are other companies doing to address recording of Business Rules and Data Mapping?

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.

Zahid KamalStrategy & ArchitectureTechnology & Operations

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.

Katrina EastonData Architecture ManagerCard Products and Collections

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

info@adastracorp.com

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

Best Practise

A corporate metadata strategy should consider the whole range of targets

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)

Summary of Discussions

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)

Future Session Possibility

Business Rules modelling methods controlled vocabularies (languages) repositories engines