Open Review Commences for Microsoft Repository
ACTION ITEMS

Computer Reseller News has reported that Microsoft Corp opened a design review period for new data warehousing extensions for Microsoft Repository. The goal is to garner broad support for repository extensions to allow data warehousing vendors to share information, officials said.

Preliminary specifications have been made available for data transformation services and online analytical processing (OLAP) extensions to the repository's Open Information Model. The open-input phase of the review process closes in February at an industry partner review, where updated specifications will be presented, said Lloyd Arrow, Microsoft's Repository product manager.

"Over time, we'll see the repository used more and more to provide the information that you need to get at data you are looking for in a more automated fashion," Arrow said.

The Microsoft Repository Open Information Model provides a common format for tools to share information that describes objects, components and modules, officials said. In addition, a recent add-on to the Open Information Model, the database schema model, allows sharing of information between data warehousing and database design tools from different vendors. The extensions were designed in cooperation with a dozen companies. Also, more than 65 vendors have taken advantage of the Microsoft Repository to share components across their products, Microsoft officials said.

"The issues for the repository are the design and adoption of these additional metadata models, and that's what the open review process is about," said Joe Brown, Microsoft's data warehousing product manager.

Information on the specifications is available at http://www.microsoft.com/repository