SuperGlue Offers Greater VisibilitySuperGlue Offers Greater Visibility

Metadata management might sound like an issue that only a database manager would care about. But metadata plays a role in everything from application integration to data warehouse projects to corporate governance and compliance with regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Metadata, or "data about the data" that resides in data repositories throughout an IT system, is critical for understanding the source of the data, its underlying relationships, and how it's used. Informatica Corp. this week debuted its SuperGlue metadata-management software, which helps managers integrate disparate enterprise metadata and analyze it for management tasks.

"The whole issue of metadata management is bubbling to the surface," Gartner analyst Mike Blechar says. Service-oriented IT networks using applications based on Java 2 Enterprise Edition, .Net, and XML architectures generate lots of metadata that needs to be managed, he says. Metadata plays a role in application integration and building data warehouses because developers need to understand the data in the systems being integrated. Metadata also helps manage the flow of data throughout an IT system and assess the impact of system and process changes.

Metadata management is also important for corporate governance efforts such as meeting Sarbanes-Oxley financial-reporting requirements. Developing financial audits, for example, requires understanding where financial data came from, how it was generated, and how accurate it is.

The Web-based SuperGlue product incorporates Informatica's PowerCenter data-integration technology and PowerAnalyzer data-analysis and reporting software. SuperGlue, with its visualization capabilities and directory of IT assets, provides managers with personalized dashboard views of data flows.

SuperGlue is available now; pricing starts at $150,000. Blechar says it will compete most directly with Ascential Software Corp.'s DataStage metadata and data-quality-management software.