Metadata management: past, present and future

Abstract In the past, metadata has always been a second-class citizen in the world of databases and data warehouses. Its main purpose has been to define the data. However, the current emphasis on metadata in the data warehouse and software repository communities has elevated it to a new prominence. The organization now needs metadata for tool integration, data integration and change management. The paper presents a chronological account of this evolution—both from conceptual and management perspectives. Repository concepts are currently being used to manage metadata for tool integration and data integration. As a final chapter in this evolution process, we point out the need of a concept called “metadata warehouse.” A real-life data warehouse project called TAMUS Information Portal (TIP) is used to describe the types of metadata needed in a data warehouse and the changes that the metadata go through. We propose that the metadata warehouse needs to be designed to store the metadata and manage its changes. We propose several architectures that can be used to develop a metadata warehouse.