UNTAPPED MARKET FOR INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT WORTH $10B

Technology-enabled business projects such as data warehousing, which aim to bring together information from all areas of the organization, are steadily moving up the corporate agenda. However, according to Ovum there is another vital ingredient to consider if this vision of "joined-up" business is to be realized. This is the role of metadata: the often hidden "information about information", which defines the context, assumptions or usage restrictions behind corporate data or assets.

Ovum's new report, Repositories and XML: Technology Choices for Metadata Management, shows how the need to manage metadata becomes more and more pressing as organizations grow and evolve. Normal working practices and the short life cycles of software tools mean that metadata tends to be dissipated into information islands. The crucial contextual information behind projects, records or applications is rarely stored or made accessible in a structured way, which can have devastating results.

"The recent loss of a NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars is a terrific -- if perhaps extreme -- example of the importance of managing metadata," said Mike Budd, senior Ovum analyst and author of the report. "Two teams on the ground exchanged technical information, apparently not realizing that they were using different units of measurement -- one Metric, the other Imperial. Because there was no structured process to record and make available that crucial contextual information, the calculations ended up incorrect and the spacecraft was lost, costing $300 million."

According to Budd this example could well apply to strategic corporate decision-making, which is becoming more dependent on the kind of bleeding-edge business intelligence made possible by new technologies. Metadata management makes it easier to understand the current state of the business, easier to experiment with potential changes and easier to implement changes. It also helps to prevent flawed decisions based on simple misunderstanding of crucial data.

But the concept of managing metadata is not new in itself. "Repositories" -- in the form of products such as AD/Cycle have existed since the late 1980s. But the advent of technologies like data warehousing which cut across organizational divides, along with the Y2K experience which encouraged better understanding of software applications, has brought new impetus to the metadata management market. Today's organization needs integrated solutions that bring together metadata from many different sources, including documents, databases and program code.

XML is also an important new market driver. This technology has been touted in some quarters as the solution to every integration problem, but the report finds that it is no real solution to the metadata problem. "The problem is that repository technology is deeply unfashionable," says Budd. "But every vendor is jumping on the XML bandwagon. What people have to remember is that XML is a mark-up language, not a metadata management solution. It can help by enabling information exchange between tools, but provides no inherent management functionality. Some users may run into big problems because they are trying to get it to do things that it just wasn't designed for."

The report covers the three types of metadata management software: mature database-based repository products such as IBM Team Connection, "stovepipe" solutions applying to just one application context and XML-based solutions -- such as Object Design eXcelon -- which Budd calls the "wildcards of the market". The repository products are found to be the most capable in terms of core functionality, but the perception that they are an ageing technology is severely hindering their success.

For more information, visit http://www.ovum.com.