Data is a key growth driver for businesses today. However, efficient, high-quality data integration remains a challenge for many organizations. Imagine you’ve got the data to advance your business, but don’t know how to map and implement it? An advanced metadata management strategy is your map.
Managing metadata has become unavoidable for organizations due to big data implementation and the need for easy data accessibility. To address these needs and manage metadata, companies adopt specified tools. In 2024, the global metadata management tools market was valued at $11.6 billion and is expected to go beyond $36.4 billion by 2030.
So, let us understand what managing metadata means and explore the top tools for managing metadata. Firstly, let us learn what metadata is...
What is Metadata?
Simply put, metadata is the ‘data about data’. It describes the key information about a dataset that helps users understand what it’s about. Using metadata enables companies to organize, manage, and use data more simply. Metadata typically includes title, author, keywords, subjects, creation date, and the dataset’s file size.
Integrating and managing metadata can streamline data management and governance endeavors. Alongside that, it can also save data management costs significantly. So, if data is your company’s gold, metadata is the treasure map.
There are five types of metadata. Each type indicates various aspects of data:
- Descriptive metadata
- Structural metadata
- Administrative metadata
- Technical metadata
- Preservation metadata
What is Metadata Management?
Metadata management is the practice and technology that captures, organizes, and governs context so people and systems can find, trust, and use data reliably. It turns scattered facts into searchable, actionable intelligence, a single source of truth for the meaning, lineage, and health of your data assets. Active and passive metadata management are two significant approaches to handling metadata.
Best and innovative practices in managing metadata include integrating AI, ML, automation, and building a metadata-driven data architecture. According to sources, companies that fail to adopt a metadata-driven approach spend 40% more on their data management efforts.
Why does Your Business Need to Manage Metadata?
Metadata management can serve as a multiplier for your organization’s data value. Its key benefits are:
Faster discovery and decision-making:Â Teams find the right dataset quickly because metadata offers core details about datasets without consuming much time.
Improved data quality and compliance:Â Lineage and quality tags offered by metadata management tools make it easier to trace errors, demonstrate controls for audits, and validate data sources.
Better collaboration across teams:Â Managing metadata offers shared business definitions and ownership to stop duplicate analyses and conflicting reports.
Operational efficiency and cost savings:Â Automation reduces manual tagging, fastens onboarding, and lowers support overhead, allowing data teams to focus on higher-value work.
More trustworthy analytics and AI:Â Metadata management models trained in well-documented, quality-assured data are more reliable and less risky to deploy.
Top Tools for Metadata Management
Alation
Alation offers advanced, AI-enabled metadata solutions to keep your organization data-ready. It aims to streamline operations, safeguard data, and sustain data-driven innovation with cutting-edge metadata management strategies.
Features:
- Automates active metadata handling.
- Enables context and accountability for AI models.
- Offers simplified navigation for business users.
- Integrates AI-powered data cataloguing.
Pricing:Â Alation has custom pricing for users based on their business needs.
Atlan
Atlan addresses the modern and diverse metadata management needs of users. It focuses on helping users discover, understand, trust, and collaborate effectively with data assets.
Features:
- Supports data source connectors.
- Enables automated metadata extraction.
- Allows data lineage and impact analysis.
- Provides data profiling and quality monitoring.
- Encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Pricing:Â Atlaoffersas a monthly subscription and includes a demo.
Collibra
Collibra is a data intelligence platform that offers efficient metadata management services. With advanced data cataloging, lineage mapping, quality monitoring, and AI governance, this platform empowers organizations with top-notch metadata handling.
Features:
- Enables automated data discovery and cataloging.
- Offers active metadata management and AI insights.
- Provides end-to-end data lineage.
- Creates business glossary and policy management.
- Supports collaborative workflows and stewardship.
Pricing:Â Collibra pricing depends on organization size and the number of users.
IBM InfoSphere Information Analyzer
InfoSphere Information Analyzer by IBM maintains consistency and quality of data through in-depth content and structural evaluation. It also helps in maintaining data accuracy and advanced methods to detect anomalies. The platform further supports delivering trusted content through validating data.
Features:
- Offers deep data profiling and analysis.
- Enables anomaly and redundancy detection.
- Offers data lineage and governance.
- Provides reporting and monitoring.
- Unlocks exception management.
Pricing:Â IBM InfoSphere Information Analyzer is not publicly available.
Oracle Enterprise Metadata Management (OEMM)
Oracle Enterprise Metadata Management empowers modern businesses to harvest and govern metadata across their entire data management architecture. While addressing critical business challenges with advanced metadata handling, this tool maintains data transparency.
Features:
- Reports to source lineage.
- Provides model versioning.
- Offers annotations and tagging.
- Supports metadata standards.
- Builds and maintains a business glossary.
- Enables big data.
Pricing:Â OEMM offers custom pricing models based on usage.
Manage Metadata with the Right Tool!
Metadata management succeeds when the process meets the appropriate platform. Look for tools that can automatically generate metadata, show lineage, enforce business-centric glossaries, and surface-active recommendations. The right tool becomes your organization’s quality data enabler, unlocking easy discovery, governance, and AI, while sustaining scalability.
Read our informative blogs to stay up to date on the key technological shifts and trends!
FAQs:
1. What are the three types of metadata?
Answer:Â Three types of metadata include descriptive, administrative, and structural data.
2. What’s the difference between data and metadata?
Answer:Â Data defines any sort of raw information or content. On the other hand, metadata is the data about data that gives context and details about raw datasets.
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