Enterprise Metadata Management

What Does Enterprise Metadata Management Mean?

Enterprise metadata management (EMM) is the process of managing metadata, which gives additional information and context to other information and data assets of an organization. Metadata is information that describes the various facets of information assets, which improves its usability and enables easier management throughout its lifecycle. For example, in a given document, the metadata is the additional information that describes it such as the original author, the creation date, the modified date or notes that describe what the document is for.

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Techopedia Explains Enterprise Metadata Management

Enterprise metadata management provides control and visibility needed to manage the change that often accompanies a complex enterprise data environment. EMM and the various software created for it provide management for data integration and allow users to view the links and roles of metadata.

EMM ensures that metadata is available in an effective way, making data more valuable. A common way of doing this is to aggregate and link metadata from a wide range of data sources so that it can be managed through a central hub.

Benefits of EMM include:

  • Governs, integrates and manages data more easily through the understanding of the true meaning of information, from its actual content down to its metadata
  • Reduces risks and manages change by avoiding errors and increasing regulatory compliance, eventually providing a holistic view of enterprise data across the organization
  • Increases productivity by understanding the impact of specific data changes and enabling collaboration between technical and business stakeholders
  • Facilitates better data flow between different systems
  • Enables better governance of enterprise data assets
  • Improves information access through context
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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…