A Metadata Resource to Promote Data Integration

Data integration is expensive, largely due to the difficulty of gathering relevant metadata. We observe that a database may participate in multiple integration efforts, and that much of the same metadata is required, regardless of which kind of effort is being undertaken. This presents a tremendous opportunity to reduce the long-term development and maintenance cost of interoperable systems, by gathering relevant metadata only once and representing it in ways that are amenable to reuse. We present metadata management strategies that promote reuse and describe a repository-based vision for the development of interoperable systems.