Metada Glossary

► Metadata is structured data which describes the characteristics of a resource. It shares many similar characteristics to the cataloguing that takes place in libraries, museums and archives. The term "meta" derives from the Greek word denoting a nature of a higher order or more fundamental kind. A metadata record consists of a number of pre-defined elements representing specific attributes of a resource, and each element can have one or more values.

Metadata and their management play the key role in all areas of information systems and applications. Metadata are needed in development tools for models and databases description. They are needed in environments based on component architecture - it is necessary to sore and work with informations about interface, classes, components, services of component infrastructure, etc. For data warehouses we would need metadata about tables, columns, dimensions. At the middleware area metadata store the formats, protocols and configuration informations.

► Metamodeling means a higher abstraction of modeling, which enables models to better fit their intended domain.

► Metamodels are being designed for specific domains where specific models are needed. For example, UML as a very general metamodel may be restrained (via UML Profiles) to enable creation of more domain specific models. Standards-wise, metamodeling is well covered by the OMG’s Model Driven Architecture (MDA).

► Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a way of building and integrating enterprise applications in a heterogeneous environment. The corner-stone of SOA is in the representation of applications’ functionality as coarse-grained services which can communicate with each other. SOA allows enterprises to focus on services and business processes among them rather then focusing at a lower level integration issues.