Informatica Stuck On Managing Metadata

Informatica is taking on what some systems integrators call the black hole of enterprise IT with SuperGlue, its new metadata management system.

Combining some aspects of Informatica's PowerCenter data extraction and PowerAnalyzer visualization tools, along with a new metadata repository, SuperGlue is designed to provide a visual representation of data flow between disparate systems, according to the Redwood City, Calif.-based vendor.

SuperGlue offers a visual representation of data flow between systems.

Sanjay Poonen, senior vice president of marketing at Informatica, compared SuperGlue to FedEx's tracking system. "This is a Web-based application,business intelligence applied to the IT data problem," he said. "It tracks all the data that interconnects systems. At the 30,000-foot level, it tracks and documents all the contextual information around a particular number,a dollar figure in a balance sheet, for example."

Integrators know firsthand that managing the "data about the data" is no trivial matter. "Every product captures its own version of metadata, and the age-old problem is bringing together all of that data in a repository," said Shari Rogalski, associate partner at New York-based Accenture. "Presumably, SuperGlue is one solution to that and the next attempt to make metadata more practical, manageable and [available in] realtime in a Web-based way."

Adrienne Tannenbaum, president of Database Design Solutions, Bernardsville, N.J., said she boils the problem down to five questions: "What data do we have? What does it mean? Where is it? How did it get there? And how do I get at it?"

With stricter regulatory requirements such as last year's Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which mandates responsible financial reporting and oversight, those questions have become even more critical, executives said.

"Systems integrators are building systems supporting Sarbanes-Oxley, and there is a lot of documentation needed," Poonen said.

SuperGlue is available now and starts at $150,000.