How to manage increasingly complex data ecosystems? One crucial element that enables businesses to keep track of, organize, and extract value from their data is metadata. But with so many tools and solutions available, how do organizations identify the right metadata management platform to meet their needs?
Gartner, one of the world’s leading research and advisory firms, plays a vital role in this process. Through its market guides and reports, Gartner helps enterprises navigate the crowded vendor landscape, offering valuable insights into which tools stand out and why.
Choosing a metadata management tool can be complex, as businesses must consider:
Gartner has long been a trusted authority in the tech industry, known for providing organizations with independent, objective insights into emerging trends, technology vendors, and the best tools for their business. Their vendor identification process is particularly useful for metadata management tools because of the diversity of offerings available.
Gartner’s vendor identification methodology simplifies this process by offering well-researched, unbiased evaluations of the top providers in the market. Data leaders and heads of data management should utilize Gartner’s tools once they have established their strategy and defined the scope of their requirements for metadata management solutions. The Vendor Identification for Metadata Management Solutions tool provides a shortlist of suitable vendors based on these criteria. This enables you to further explore the market and assess each vendor's ability to meet your specific business needs and technical challenges.
The tool provides detailed profiles of each vendor, including information on their headquarters, website, industry presence, and pricing guidelines. It also covers deployment options, such as on-premises, cloud, or other configurations, along with details on their regional presence and AI capabilities. Additionally, the profiles explain how each vendor integrates AI into their platform. Capabilities are organized into three categories: A for must-have or standard features, B for advanced capabilities, and C for optional features.
Choosing the right active metadata management tool isn’t just about finding a solution that catalogs data. It’s about finding one that turns metadata into actionable intelligence, integrated across the enterprise’s entire data stack. Metadata management tools are transitioning from documenting data content and specifications (passive metadata) to focusing on active metadata. Gartner assists enterprises by helping them focus on active metadata management, which provides real-time, actionable insights into data as it moves through different stages.
Here’s how Gartner helps you choose the best tool for your business:
So, what exactly is active metadata management, and why is it crucial for enterprises?
“Active metadata is the continuous analysis of all available users, data management, systems/infrastructure and data governance experience reports to determine the alignment and exception cases between data as designed versus actual experience.“
Traditional metadata management involves cataloging and documenting data assets, helping teams understand what data they have and where it’s located. However, as data environments become more dynamic, organizations require active metadata solutions that can do much more. Metadata management tools are transitioning from documenting data content and specifications (passive metadata) to focusing on active metadata.
This dynamic approach transforms metadata from a passive resource into a vital tool for decision-making, enabling enterprises to react quickly to changing data landscapes. To further aid enterprises in making an informed decision, Gartner outlines several mandatory capabilities that metadata management tools must have.
Metadata management tools must include several mandatory features to be effective. They need to support third-party metadata utilization, enabling direct access to or ingestion of metadata from external sources beyond their native platform. This ensures comprehensive and seamless sharing of metadata across systems, with fewer barriers enhancing the solution’s effectiveness. A metadata repository is essential, allowing management or ingestion of internal, external, or semantically connected data stores capable of resolving "triple" relationships (subject, object, predicate) through various architectures.
The tools must also provide a reference and search-based interface that supports identifying assets by matching user inputs to locate metadata records. They should also provide features for linking and cross-referencing metadata, allowing users to easily connect different data assets and add their own descriptions to explain the relationships between them. The degree of automation in this process may vary.
Gartner’s Market Guides are an invaluable resource for organizations looking to navigate the complex world of metadata management. Through their comprehensive research and evaluation process, Gartner helps businesses identify the best active metadata management tools to meet their unique challenges. By focusing on real-time automation, integration, and actionable insights, Gartner ensures that enterprises can manage their data environments effectively and drive better decision-making.
If your organization is searching for a metadata management solution that’s aligned with your strategic goals, turning to Gartner’s guides can provide the clarity and direction you need to make an informed decision. Dawiso was in September 2024 included in Vendor Identification for Metadata Management Solutions.
Dawiso stands out as a software solution that aligns with the principles of data democratization. It not only meets all the essential requirements for metadata management but also integrates a strong business context into data, making it accessible and understandable for non-technical users. Unlike other highly technical tools, Dawiso is user-friendly and intuitive, allowing business users to independently explore and find the data they need, while ensuring consistency in metrics through standardized definitions. The platform is scalable, supported by a dedicated Dawiso team, and enhanced with AI capabilities. With flexible pricing models and the only free 15-day trial in the market, Dawiso offers an innovative and accessible approach to metadata management for organizations of all sizes.
Keep reading and take a deeper dive into our most recent content on metadata management and beyond:
.png)
