In a recent survey of Data Management professionals, most indicated that their companies fail to understand the value of metadata. Over 70% of the companies who responded indicated that they don’t manage metadata as a corporate asset. Metadata is one of the many data management disciplines that most organizations fail to realize value until their data is in such bad shape they are forced to call in experts to help with the cleanup. The sad fact is that most companies spend more on data cleanup and compliance resolution than they would in they had institutionalized metadata management in the first place. Metadata provides the necessary information to better understand and utilize data. It’s the corporate DNA that unifies business nomenclature throughout the enterprise. It ensures that everyone across the enterprise is reading and speaking from the same proverbial page. All the data management tools we use for profiling, quality enhancement, integration, ETL, and reporting rely on metadata. So why is there such an enormous lack of understanding of its value? The answer is simple. In most cases it’s because most companies don’t know where to start! This session explains in detail where to start and where you should be headed in designing and implementing successful metadata management at your company. First we must demystify the mythology and folklore surrounding metadata and then define the elements from which to formulate a roadmap for implementation.

Joyce is an expert in ETL, data profiling, metadata management. She has implemented data warehouses and operational data stores, and developed application systems across mainframe, client/server and Internet architectures. In addition to her consulting work, Joyce is on the faculty at The Data Warehouse Institiute, is frequent speaker at DAMA, DCI, and IQ conferences, contributes articles to DM Review, Database Magazine, B-EYE-Network, and has coauthored Data Warehousing and E-Business (Wiley & Sons) with Bill Inmon.

Prior to joining Baseline, Joyce headed up her own IT consultancy firm, DBTech Solutions, Inc. where her clients were comprised of both IT vendors and Fortune 5000 companies. Prior to that, she was senior vice president for Intelligent Solutions, Inc. Joyce has implemented and managed data warehouses and operational data stores for companies in many industries including pharmaceutical, restaurant, telecommunications, government, health care, financial, oil and gas, insurance, and retail.