Business rules for configurable metamodels and enterprise impact analysis

Abstract

A metadata management system for importing, integrating and federating metadata, including a configurable metamodel, a metadata repository for storing metadata whose structure reflects the metamodel, at least one external metadata source, which is able to persist metadata in accordance with the structure of a meta-schema, a mapping module for mapping the meta-schema to the metamodel, and a transformation module, operatively coupled to the metadata mapping module, for translating specific metadata from the at least one external metadata source to the metadata repository, for use in import, export or synchronization of metadata between the external metadata source and the metadata repository. A method and a computer-readable storage medium are also described.

Description

CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation-in-part of assignee's pending application U.S. Ser. No. 10 / 053,045, filed on Jan. 15, 2002, entitled “Method and System for Deriving a Transformation by Referring Schema to an Central Model,” which is a continuation-in-part of assignee's pending application U.S. Ser. No. 09 / 866,101, filed on May 25, 2001, entitled “Method and System for Collaborative Ontology Modeling.”FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates to management of enterprise metadata. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Large enterprises rely on vast amounts and diverse types of data for their operation—personnel data, financial data, accounting data, inventory data, capital equipment data, document management data, and more. Today, data is generally stored according to data structures referred to as a data schemas, such as XML and relational database schemas, these being a form of metadata. The term “metadata” is used to...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0024] There is additionally provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a metadata management system for performing impact analysis on an IT system comprising a configurable metamodel for modeling metadata that describes assets of an enterprise IT system, the metamodel including meta-classes and meta-properties, business rules on the metamodel for indicating that certain meta-properties have impact consequences, and an impact analyzer operating on the configurable metamodel for determining which assets of the enterprise IT system are impacted by one or more specified assets.

[0025] There is further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention A method for generating metadata comprising providing (i) a configurable metamodel for modeling metadata that describes assets of an enterprise IT system, the metamodel including meta-classes and meta-properties, and (ii) business rules on said metamodel for indicating that certain meta-properties have impact consequences, and determining which assets of the enterprise IT system are impacted by one or more specified assets.

[0026] There is yet further provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention a computer-readable storage medium storing program code for causing a computer to perform the steps of providing (i) a configurable metamodel for modeling metadata that describes assets of an enterprise IT system, the metamodel including meta-classes and meta-properties, and (ii) business rules on said metamodel for indicating that certain meta-properties have impact consequences, and determining which assets of the enterprise IT system are impacted by one or more specified

Problems solved by technology

While the prior art includes flexible metamodels such as MOF-compliant metamodels, which flexibly define the structure of metadata, metamodels have not been used to describe specific rules which metadata must obey.

Therefore, metamodels have hitherto had limited use in the detailed governance of IT.

Furthermore, although there are standard languages such as MOF for specifying metamodels, in reality sources of metadata currently have their own metamodels, making it difficult to accumulate metadata from different sources into one overall metadata model of enterprise IT.

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