DATA ADMINISTRATION, DATABASE ADMINISTRATION, AND DATA DICTIONARIES - Fundamentals of Database Management Systems - page 281

administrators' role in database design is often more that of consultants who are
called in on request.

DATA DICTIONARIES

Introduction
The information systems function (and within it, the data and database administration
functions) is responsible for managing data as a corporate resource. Not only must
the data be stored but, like any other resource, there have to be provisions for
inputting more of it, outputting it (in the form of reports, query responses, data
transmissions to supply chain partners, etc.), and, most certainly, processing it! To
accomplish all this requires people, equipment (i.e., computers, disks, networks, and
so forth) and established procedures, standards, and policies. The question before
us now is, how does IS management keep track of all of this? But then, how does
any corporate function keep track of their resources and other responsibilities? With
information systems, of course! Does that mean that IS management can keep track
of its resources and responsibilities with information systems? The apparent answer
should be yes, perhaps even obviously yes. But this has been a long and at times
difficult road. Do you know the old story about the shoemaker's children being the
last ones to get shoes, Figure 10.4? The shoemaker was so busy making shoes for
the other children of the town in order to make a living that his own children were
the last ones to get shoes. And the IS function has been so busy developing and
running systems to support all the other corporate functions that it was a long time
before it could invest the resources to develop information systems to support itself.
What we are talking about here comes under the general term metadata ,
literally data about data. What data does an IS function need to manage itself and
what kinds of tools can it employ to store and handle the data? For a long time,
the term for such a metadata storage tool has been the data dictionary , literally a
database about data. More recently, the term data repository has come into vogue.
Also, the term data catalog has taken on certain specific meanings. We will discuss

Personnel
Dept.

Manufacturing
Dept.

Accounting
Dept.

Finance
Dept.

Information Systems
Dept.

F IGURE 10.4
The shoemaker's children are the last ones to get shoes