IBM Releases Metadata Workbench for Data Visualization and Metadata Management

New module enhances IBM Information Server software platform for SOA, compliance, business intelligence, and master data integration projects

• By James E. Powell
• 06/27/2007

IBM today released IBM Metadata Workbench, a new data visualization and management software for IBM Information Server that provides insight into data. It can also reduce SOA project deployment times and be used in compliance, business intelligence, and master data integration projects.

Metadata -- information about data -- has become increasingly important in compliance initiatives and information integration efforts. To help IT and business users manage their metadata, the IBM Metadata Workbench provides a visual display of the relationships among data sources and data users and can provides the proof of data lineage that many compliance regulations require.

The new software can, according to Big Blue, “pinpoint the exact impact of any data change and show the relationships among business and technical information assets.” It says that SOA business intelligence projects can use Metadata Workbench to understand the origins of information and to link fields in many business intelligence reporting tools (to link SOA service data elements back to their sources, which can reveal data was derived). The tool can also display the processing performed on data elements as they move between systems (which can help users understand the impact of any change to any information asset) and identify the reports, databases, or services that would affected if any changes are made.

“With Web-based visualization and navigation of metadata, IBM Metadata Workbench is the first software to provide this level of design and operational metadata visibility and management across all aspects of the data integration process, including data modeling, profiling, quality, ETL and information delivery, and SOA information service deployment,” said Michael Curry, director product strategy and management, IBM Information Platform and Solutions, in a statement. “IBM Metadata Workbench extends the visibility of metadata across IBM Information Server product modules to external third-party tools as well, including the leading data modeling and business intelligence tools, allowing complete end-to-end metadata visualization.”

Besides using the new tool to understanding existing metadata, Metadata Workbench can be used to create new metadata objects within IBM Information Server and change metadata directly to remove problems.

IBM Metadata Workbench is available now; for more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/data/integration/info_server/.