How Does the DoD Use Metadata to Make its Massive Data Stores More Visible?

Overview and Analysis of the Department of Defense Discovery Metadata Specification (DDMS)

Apr. 26, 2005 12:00 PM

Suggestions

The core DDMS specification is clear and the site contains many resources (some protected) that help implementers quickly understand the technology. What was not evident from the site was if the DoD provides any resources and encouragement for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) to implement DDMS support in their projects. Developers of relational database systems (RDBMS), content management systems (CMS), enterprise application integration tools (EAI), software modeling tools, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and enterprise information integration (EII) tools should all be strongly encouraged to support DDMS. Custom programming of DDMS support is valuable but repeated implementations across DoD will certainly reduce ROI and slow implementation. A more visible program for ISV support would help the specification succeed over time.

Summary

DDMS provides a comprehensive and extensible system for publishing metadata about data assets. The organization of the standard into a minimal Core Layer and an Extensible Layer allows implementers to start with a subset of the information that they would ideally like to publish and then organically improve the quality of their metadata systems. The organization of elements into Security, Resource, Summary Content, and Format category sets allow producers and consumers to separate out design concerns for access, categorization, search, and consumption. As DDMS is incorporated into custom systems and commercial tools (RDBMS, modeling tools, EAI tools, EII tools, ERP systems, search engines) its value will continue to grow.

References

DDMS Site, Global Information Grid (GIG) Enterprise Services metadata Working Group (GES-MWG): http://diides.ncr.disa.mil/mdreg/user/DDMS.cfm

Department of Defense Net-Centric Data Strategy, Version 1.0, May 9, 2003, signed by the DoD CIO

Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1, July 2, 1999, published by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)

Enterprise Metadata Discovery, published by BEA Systems: http://dev2dev.bea.com/pub/a/2004/12/emd.html

Published Apr. 26, 2005— Reads 15,589
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media. All Rights Reserved.

Related Links

About Michael A. Sick
Michael Sick, a member of the editorial board of both SOA Web services Journal and Java Developer's Journal, is an independent J2EE and SOA architect who helps his clients solve complex product definition and design problems. He has more than 10 years of experience in the construction of distributed information systems and network technologies, having held positions from senior developer to senior systems architect to VP development. His work has crossed many domains including insurance, defense, finance, graphics & imaging, membership management, travel & entertainment, and e-commerce. He holds degrees in geology and political science from Guilford College, Greensboro, NC.

XML JOURNAL LATEST STORIES . . .

i-Technology Viewpoint: The Performance Woe of Binary XML

By Jimmy Zhang

Since its inception, XML has been criticized for the overhead it introduces into the enterprise infrastructure. Business data encoded in XML takes five to 10 times more bandwidth to transmit in the network and proportionally more disk space to store.

Vordel 5.1 Puts Policy Control at the Heart of XML Networks

By XML News Desk

Vordel unveiled version 5.1 of its XML network infrastructure products, to accelerate, manage and protect XML applications. Vordel 5.1 addresses the need for lifecycle management of policy across the SOA. By combining the central management of SOA policies with distributed enforcement ...

Adobe's Kevin Lynch and Microsoft's Scott Guthrie to Keynote AJAX World RIA Conference & Expo

By RIA News Desk

Two of the biggest launches in Rich Internet Application history took place in 2007/2008 when Adobe launched AIR 1.0 in February '08 and Microsoft launched Silverlight (September '07). At the 6th International AJAXWorld RIA Conference & Expo in October SYS-CON Events is delighted to be...

How to Enable High Speed Parsing of Very Large XML Files

By XML News Desk

As the number of XML files in enterprise organizations significantly increases, architects, application developers, and data integration specialists must deal simultaneously with the growing number of XML formatted messages on the network as well as their rapidly expanding file sizes. ...

DataDirect Technologies Introduces the DataDirect Data Integration Suite

By SOA World Magazine News Desk

DataDirect and an operating company of Progress Software Corporation announced the availability of the DataDirect Data Integration Suite. The new offering combines DataDirect Technologies' existing XML-based technologies in one package with a single, simple installation. Software devel...