Enterprise-Wide Metadata Management An Industry Case on the Current State and Challenges

Abstract

Metadata management is a crucial success factor for companies today, as for example, it enables exploiting data value fully or enables legal compliance. With the emergence of new concepts, such as the data lake, and new objectives, such as the enterprise-wide sharing of data, metadata management has evolved and now poses a renewed challenge for companies. In this context, we interviewed a globally active manufacturer to reveal how metadata management is implemented in practice today and what challenges companies are faced with and whether these constitute research gaps. As an outcome, we present the company’s metadata management goals and their corresponding solution approaches and challenges. An evaluation of the challenges through a literature and tool review yields three research gaps, which are concerned with the topics: (1) metadata management for data lakes, (2) categorizations and compositions of metadata management tools for comprehensive metadata management, and (3) the use of data marketplaces as metadata-driven exchange platforms within an enterprise. The gaps lay the groundwork for further research activities in the field of metadata management and the industry case represents a starting point for research to realign with real-world industry needs.