Metadata Management Technology Selection QuickScan

From MIKE2 Methodology

Metadata Management Technology Selection QuickScan lists out some of the key capabilities expected from Foundation Capabilities for Information Development product so that objective decisions can be made on the appropriate product to be used.

This tool can be used throughout the architectural process to provide comparative analysis of technology products. IT should be used during Phase 2 of the MIKE2.0 Methodology. It has initially been created for comparison against Foundation Capabilities of the SAFE Architecture but will be extended over time.

Assessment Approach

The assessment is answered by scoring each product against the assessment questions below. Scoring can be done at a team level or by a number of individuals; the assessment should be done individually for each product.

The scoring model is simple:

• Answers are based on multiples of 2:

• For capability rating:
  • 1 = No and not planned
  • 2 = No, in a future release
  • 3 = Yes, but has major issues
  • 4 = Yes, but has minor issues
  • 5 = Yes, ideally meets requirements

• For importance weighting a multiplier is used:
  • 0 = no relevance
  • .5 = somewhat important
  • 1 = important
  • 2 = very important

These questions provide a 'starter set' to be used by project implementation teams.

Issues with the Approach

Clearly a wiki is not the appropriate technology to conduct an assessment. The purpose of putting content into this form was to initially gather some feedback and to drive reviews of open source products in relation to commercially available solutions.

The goal will be to move the assessment questions into a web-based model as has been done with Information Maturity QuickScan although the preference would be to create an Open Source Assessment Framework.

Assessment Questions

Listed below are the assessment questions in the tool.

Factors	Categories	Criteria	Score	Importance	Comments
Architecture	Access	Does the tool handle concurrent usage on overlapping data sets?
	Access	Does the tool function in a c/s fashion using a shared repository?
	Access	Does the tool offer web-based access for "read" users?
	Access	Does the tool allow creation, updates and deletion of metadata directly into the repository?
	Access	Does the tool allow repository bi-directional access by 3rd party products?
	Convergence	What is the level of integration to an Data Quality tool?
	Convergence	What is the level of integration to an ETL tool?
	Standards	Does the tool support open standards such as CWM?
	Extensibility	Is the metadata model extensible and flexible client-specific metadata can be modeled and integrated into the tool?
	Extensibility	Does the tool provide an open API for development of custom features?
	Extensibility	Are development and debugging tools available to assist in development of custom features?
	Scalability	Can the tool support projected 3-year business growth volumes?
Automation	Scheduling	Can reports be sent automatically to specific users?
	Scheduling	Can reports be sent to users for exceptions or anomolies?
	Scheduling	Can the tool send user notifications if metadata changes as part of a user/scheduled operation?
	Scheduling	Can the upload of metadata be done in a automated fashion?
Metadata Management	Data Lineaege	Can lineage be traced across systems within the tool?
	Data Stewardship	Can information owners/stewards be tracked through the tool?
	Impact Analysis	Can the the tool track the impact of a single change?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Entity Relationships?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Relational Databases?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Cobol copybooks?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for ETL?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Business Intelligence?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Buiness Requirements?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Data Stewardship?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Business Nomenclature?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Operational/Process Data?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Data Quality?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for Data Profiling?
	Modelling	Does the product support metamodeling for XML Schemas/dtds?
	Security	Does the tool provide the ability to define user roles and privileges for accessability to metadata?
Metadata Reporting	Visualisation	Can the tool provide a graphical display (e.g. pie charts, graphs)
	Visualisation	Can the tool produce color-code reports?
	Visualisation	Can the tool present information into a dashboard view?
	Reporting Content	Is there control within the tool around report name creation?
	Reporting Content	Can the reports from the tool be customised?
	Reporting Content	Can reports be produced in multiple formats (e.g. HTML, text)?
	Reporting Content	Does the tool offer a number of out-of-the box reports?
	Reporting Content	Does the tool allow out-of-the box reports to be customised?
	Reporting Content	Does the tool offer a simple search function? e.g. Text based search for users who don ’ t know what they are looking for
	Reporting Content	Does the tool provide an ad-hoc metadata browsing capability?
	Reporting Content	Does the tool provide repository statistics reporting? E.g. Usage summary and analysis.
	Reporting Content	Can anomalous issues be presented in a logical/ordered fashion?
Operations	Usability	Is the GUI "user friendly" and intuitive?
	Usability	Can the tool be readily used by business and technical users?
	Deploy	Does the tool provide simple, wizard-driven installation?
	Deploy	Does the tool provide comprehensive help files?
	Deploy	Does the tool provide a comprehensive install guide?
	Deploy	Does the tool support running on the client ’ s SOE platforms?
	Manage	Does the tool offer development collobation such as check-in, check-out and version history?
	Deploy	Does to the tool support a metadata configuration management process through the concept of Dev, Test and Production metadata?
	Manage	Is there a way to migrate between vendors (open standards)?
	Manage	Is there a well-defined migration path between product releases?
	Manage	Does the tool provide a mechanism for backup and recovery?
	Manage	Does the tool provide a metadata differencing capability? I.e. Can v. 1 and 2 of an object be compared with the differences displayed?
	Manage	Does the tool provide utilities for managing the metadata models and extensions or changes?
	Manage	Does the tool offer logging/debuging functionality?
Product Profile	Risk	Is the organisation responsible for the product well-placed in the global market?
	Risk	Does the organisation have a strong financial position?
	Risk	Is there a good relationship with the makes of the product in the organisation?
	Risk	Is the product code available in an open source form?
	Execution	Is the product in a state of maturity and widely used in the marketplace?
	Vision	Does the organisation responsible for development have a product development vision?
	Vision	Is this product undergoing continual improvement and development?
	Skills	Does the product offer support with an active support forum?
	Skills	Are there sufficient skills in the local market for the product?
	Skills	Are there skills in the company with the product?
	Cost	What is the estimated price of the product set?