Benefits of Metadata Management
Metadata is a small amount of data that provides important context about other data. Nowadays, it’s commonly used in many businesses. The concept of metadata has come a long way. In the past, metadata was an afterthought, and most data engineers hadn’t grasped metadata management and its significant benefits. However, in 1967, MIT’s Stuart McIntosh and David Griffel suggested it as a digital meta language for emerging computer systems. Today, metadata management is crucial to leveraging the business value of data assets, and metadata management solutions keep growing in adoption.
According to Gartner, the metadata management software market increased by 2.1 percent, crossing a billion dollars in value. Experts predict the global MDM solutions market to reach $16 billion by 2025, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 18.69 percent. On that note, here are a few benefits of metadata management for businesses of all sizes.
What is metadata management?
Many definitions refer to metadata management in several facets. Some call it a discipline, while others call it a process. Regardless of which side you’re on, it’s essential to deeply understand metadata and the benefits of metadata management.
First, it’s worth noting that businesses can generate metadata in many scenarios, including every time a data source captures data. Metadata is also generated when you move data through an organization or integrate data from different sources, and it is useful across many industries. For instance, examples of metadata in the music industry will include artist and album names, release dates, etc. Therefore, metadata management has very little to do with whether it’s a discipline or a process. It can be both.
The overarching aim of metadata management is to manipulate these different data attributes to generate actionable insights for decision-making. Effective data management helps businesses describe data assets from various sources, making them more meaningful and valuable, like artist names and release dates.
But metadata management goes beyond using data catalogs to find simple data in your library, as many data professionals previously focused on. Metadata management is the foundation of any digital transformation move or cloud migration strategy in today’s world. Metadata management is the proactive use of metadata to govern and enhance data handling. It involves leveraging metadata to better understand an organization’s data, the value it holds, and its retention capacity. The next section delves deeper into the benefits of metadata management.
What are the benefits of metadata management?
Effective metadata management can benefit different companies, depending on the specific problems business leaders intend to solve. There are several general benefits of metadata management. Some are listed below.
It improves data quality. Investing in new systems and software solutions can significantly impact a company’s operational efficiency. But there’s a problem. Many of these tools produce huge volumes of data, and the company ends up managing data from disparate sources. Often, this leads to information silos and inconsistencies in your database.
Metadata management solutions automate data governance using effective data integration tools, affording business executives a unique data quality assurance. Therefore, organizations using MDM solutions are more likely to access correct data for decision-making. MDM solutions make it easier to facilitate regular maintenance of existing structures and fast-track movement from legacy systems to newer options that give you much control over your data.
It quickens project delivery. Metadata management solutions improve access to relevant data. This level of access can help deploy projects in less time with more precision. Effective metadata management can also accelerate big data deployments, vaults, and cloud migrations. MDM solutions connect data elements from their sources to target destinations, enhancing scalability and integration across all platforms.
All in all, metadata management can be the best way for businesses today to realize optimum value from an organized data environment.