2.6. Business Metadata

Business metadata represents additional information about a piece of data, not necessarily related to its physical storage in the enterprise information system or data access requirements. It can also represent descriptions, business rules, and other additional information about a piece of data.

Continuing with our example of the ZIP Code column in the address book database, the following represents business metadata we may know about the ZIP code:

Although the first might seem technical, it does not directly relate to the physical storage of the data. It represents a business rule applied to the contents of the column, not the contents themselves.

The second, of course, represents some business information about the way the column was populated. This information, although useful to associate with our definition of the column, does not reflect the physical storage of the data.