The Metadata Council, comprised of Arbor Software, Business Objects, Cognos, Evolutionary Technologies International (ETI), and Texas Instruments Software, has launched a new initiative for the development of metadata standards between different types and classes of data-management tools.
The Council was formed in July 1995, because of a shared belief in the need for standardized metadata access and interchange. Current cochairs are Patricia Nghiem of Business Objects and Dr. Katherine Hammer of ETI. During initial meetings, the Council formed the Metadata Coalition, a group dedicated to shaping the standards for metadata. The Council will act as the steering committee for the Metadata Coalition, coordinating the standards definition and ongoing evolutionary process.
"The launch of this metadata initiative is a major milestone in the evolution of enterprise data management," said Karen Rubenstrunk, senior research analyst at META Group, an industry analyst group. Rubenstrunk explains that the recent explosion of new data-management structures--including data warehouses, distributed client/server-based computing, and integrated enterprise applications--has created a pressing need for metadata standards. The Metadata Council and Coalition will address this need by establishing and adhering to a core set of industry metadata standards. Rubenstrunk adds, "This will go a long way toward ensuring that IS managers have the accurate and efficient metadata interchange essential to meeting their users' business information needs."
Coalition membership is open to any vendor whose products create, access, or are dependent on metadata.