Enterprise Data Management - High-Performance Web Databases: Design, Development, and Deployment - page 29

Exhibit 3-4. Business information directory metadata.

The business information directory contains the necessary information
for its users to navigate in business terms to what information or data is
available to them. That information includes definitions, owners, locations,
current status, and what method is used to access it. The information in the
directory is accessible at different levels (or views) depending on the user's
orientation. For example, an IS developer may wish to access data at the
table or database level, whereas a knowledge worker or data owner may
wish to access information at the function, process, or application level.

The business information directory identifies data from the business
perspective through data models, catalogs, directories, and dictionaries.
The processes to build and maintain the directory objects must ensure
consistent data definitions, names and attributes from such original
sources as the enterprise data model, data dictionaries, DBMS catalogs and
tables, and data owners.

METADATA CONTENTS

The following are some examples of the business information directory
metadata contents (see Exhibit 4):

• Name. This is the business name of a data element or field. Only one of-

ficial name exists for any element. The identical business name is to be