Quite simply, metadata is data about data. It’s generated every time data is captured at a source, accessed by users, moved through an organization, integrated or augmented with other data from other sources, profiled, cleansed and analyzed. Metadata is valuable because it provides information about the attributes of data elements that can be used to guide strategic and operational decision-making.
It answers these important questions:
Creating and sustaining an enterprise-wide view of and easy access to underlying metadata is complicated for several reasons:
As a result, the applications and initiatives that depend on a solid data infrastructure may be compromised, rendering faulty analyses and insights. Without being able to take full advantage of analytics tools, an organization can’t become data-driven — or worse, it could end up going in the wrong direction.
Learn how metadata management supports enterprise intelligence according to IDC
Data issues and inconsistencies within integrated data sources or targets are identified in real time to improve overall data quality by increasing time to insights and/or repair.
Reverse the current 85/15 rule that keeps high-paid knowledge workers too busy finding, understanding and resolving errors or inconsistencies to actually analyze source data.
Regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, PII, BCBS and CCPA have data privacy and security mandates, so sensitive data needs to be tagged, its data lineage documented, and its flows depicted for traceability.
Knowing what data exists and its value potential promotes digital transformation by improving digital experiences, enhancing digital operations, driving digital innovation and building digital ecosystems.
With the business driving alignment between data governance and strategic enterprise goals and IT handling the technical mechanics of data management, the door opens to finding, trusting and using data to effectively meet organizational objectives.
Being able to rely on automated and repeatable metadata management processes results in greater productivity. Gains of 85%+ for coding, 70%+ for metadata discovery, up to 50% for data design, up to 70% for data conversion, and up to 80% for data mapping have been reported.
Accelerate Big Data deployments, data vaults, data warehouse modernization, cloud migration, etc., by up to 70 percent.
erwin Data Intelligence by Quest fuels both data management and data governance processes through an active metadata management approach driven by automation. It's unique in its ability to automatically harvest, transform and feed metadata from a wide array of data sources, operational processes, business applications and data models into a central data catalog and then make it accessible and understandable within the context of role-based views.
erwin Data Intelligence helps globally leading companies in a diverse range of industries get a better handle on the data within their organizations to better leverage and protect it. Within highly regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare and insurance, as well as in governmental agencies, its transparency, tracking and reporting capabilities are critical assets when tackling regulatory compliance.
erwin Data Intelligence offers a metamodel that is open, extensible and comes with a full set of APIs. A comprehensive list of standard data connectors are included for automated harvesting, refreshing and version-controlled metadata management. Optional erwin Smart Data Connectors by Quest reverse-engineer ETL code of all types and connect bi-directionally with reporting and other ecosystem tools. These connectors offer the fastest and most accurate path to data lineage, impact analysis and other detailed graphical relationships.
Additionally, erwin Data Intelligence provides integrated data quality capabilities leveraging data catalog metadata to initiate and automate data profiling and quality assessments, and providing widespread visibility of data quality scoring for IT, data governance teams and business users. Optional data observability and remediation tools also support data quality initiatives.
The metadata management capabilities of erwin Data Intelligence also serve as the foundation for data governance, data literacy and data marketplace capabilities within the software. With erwin, powerful automated metadata management and data catalog capabilities are your gateway into unlocking the full potential of data within your organization.
Lastly, erwin Data Intelligence is part of the erwin by Quest platform that also integrates data modeling, enterprise architecture and business process modeling. Customers rely on erwin's active metadata-driven approach to:
erwin Data Catalog by Quest automates enterprise metadata management, data mapping, code generation and data lineage for data movement and/or integration and modernization of the data architecture. The solution harvests metadata from a broad variety of data sources and maps data elements from source to target, including “data in motion,” while harmonizing data integration across platforms.
erwin Data Literacy by Quest enables data stewards to curate and govern data assets so data consumers can discover data relevant to their roles and understand it within a business context. By creating data communities and promoting data fluency, stakeholders have an integrated and contextual view of the semantic, business and technical aspects of the entire data landscape.
erwin Standard Data Connectors are included with erwin Data Catalog to efficiently harvest and ingest metadata from common data-at-rest data sources. But many customers add erwin Smart Data Connectors for automation that harvests data-at-rest metadata from more complex sources, as well as data in motion from a broad variety of code types and industry standard tools and languages (BI, ELT, ETL). erwin Smart Data Connectors additionally empower IT teams with metadata-driven automation to speed the development lifecycle. Added visibility, improved processes and integrated data consumption platforms with reusable code all save considerable time and money.
erwin Data Quality by Quest combines data intelligence, automation and an integrated, modern augmented data quality platform to help organizations automate the data profiling, quality assessment and ongoing quality monitoring and data remediation of critical data sources. Widespread visibility of data quality scoring through erwin Data Intelligence gives IT, data governance teams and business users the information needed to fuel smart data use and build data trust.
erwin Data Marketplace by Quest makes it easy for all data users, no matter their level of technical expertise, to shop for the trusted data your business needs to move forward. Governed, high-value datasets and AI models can be analyzed, compared and shared all in one place to speed data discovery, improve data literacy and maximize the business impact of your data.