Business Metadata: Capturing Enterprise Knowledge

Chapter 1 Introducing Business Metadata

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As a rule, business data becomes business metadata when the data is be

abstracted to a broader enterprise context. For example, Joe Foster is the name

of a person. As such, Joe Foster is not business metadata. But when Joe Foster is

referred to as an “employee,” then the employee, such as Joe, can be considered

as business metadata. Remember that metadata provides context to the data; it

tells you what the data is about; it describes the data. In this context, Joe serves

as an example of an employee, and hence, serves as business metadata.

As we explore business metadata throughout this book, we will ...