Data Catalog Lead & Data Advisor at Solita, Doctoral Student at LUT University
The Future of Metadata Management? There seems to be a recurring trend among organizations that reach a certain level of maturity with data cataloging: they start to question the status quo of current enterprise data catalogs. After consideration, some organizations will continue their journey with enterprise data catalogs—and rightfully so. For others, the direction shifts toward a metadata lake-style distributed approach, similar to the #metagrid introduced by Ole Olesen-Bagneux. This approach applies particularly well to technical and operational metadata. But what about business metadata? Business metadata appears to be heading in quite the opposite direction. Now, more than ever, there is a need to centralize business metadata to build a digital twin of an organization. This will be one of the key enablers for the emergence of knowledge graphs. The real challenge will be to connect the technical and business metadata into a federated metadata management. Closing the knowledge gap between data and business teams starts with metadata. And connecting technical and business metadata begins with a shared language. #metadata #metadatamanagement #datamanagement #ontology #knowledgegraph
Isha Taneja
5d
Great perspective! 👏 The evolution of metadata management, especially the balance between centralized business metadata and distributed technical metadata, is key to bridging the gap between data and business teams. Exciting times ahead! 👍
Hi Juha-Pekka Joutsenlahti, you brought up a very intriguing point about the evolving landscape of metadata management. Because when organizations mature, their needs often outgrow traditional enterprise data catalogs. So the need to centralize business metadata is critical. 🙏🙏
Enterprises have made good strides in data management, and it's now standard practice to begin with robust data architecture. However, many companies still treat metadata as second-class citizens, and less rigor is applied to its management. Regardless of what the future holds for metadata management, it should start with a solid metadata architecture. Data catalogs are just part of the metadata management solutions. We need to think about all types of metadata—business, technical, operational, social—and how to integrate them together. This is a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Great post! The idea of combining distributed metadata lakes for technical data with centralized business metadata to create a digital twin resonates strongly. Bridging these two worlds through federated metadata management is indeed the way forward, as it enables seamless collaboration and a unified understanding between data and business teams. A shared language will be critical to making this connection effective and driving real organizational value.
Disambiguation Specialist
4dJuha-Pekka Joutsenlahti - "Closing the knowledge gap between data and business teams starts with metadata. And connecting technical and business metadata begins with a shared language." Correct, and the best way to do that, in Semantium's view, is to: ~ Acquire relevant metadata values ~ Translate those values into business terms ~ Connect the business values to the metadata values and the instances that satisfy the scope, domain, and class of all three ~ Put all of them in one - findable, accessible, interoperable, and (eventually) reusable - place