Fundamentals of Metadata Management

Chapter 13. The Data Discovery Team and Meta Grid As a Team Topology

In this short chapter, I will conclude my thoughts on metadata management and the meta grid. I’ll present a team structure and platform thinking for a meta grid that builds on everything discussed throughout the entire book. This chapter brings everything together from Part I about metadata repositories, Part II about the organizational aspects, and Part III about the meta grid itself.

Keep in mind that fundamentally, a meta grid is a simple architecture for improving metadata management. Metadata management is performed in a wealth of metadata repositories that all describe the IT landscape for various purposes, each leveraging a unique capability by understanding the IT landscape. We have only discussed a handful of repositories in this book, so remember that this is a methodology, a way of thinking—and more repositories specific to your enterprise reality can and should be included in the meta grid architecture.

The meta grid and metadata management together can be seen through the lens of the ideas put forward in Team Topologies, cited throughout this book.¹ A team topology is both organizationally and technically a structure that allows you to loosen up monolithic IT by redefining how people work together and how they use technology. The ideas in Team Topologies have been successfully tested at a global scale, and the meta grid fits into this way of thinking.

The data discovery team discussed in Part II ...