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August 15, 2006

Technologys Cockroach, Metadata

Metadata is truly the cockroach of technology. Metadata has been around since the early 1970s where it described databases and systems. I still remember the IBM System VTOC (Visual Table of Contents) from the early 1980s. Metadata was highlighted during the late 1980s with the success of the data warehouse. Today, metadata is everywhere in Grid Computing and SOA environments. One IBM fellow (Bob Zurick) said this is the year of metadata. Funny how a technology that very few people think about seems to have the longest life. Anyone seen a Fortran program or Commodore 64 lately? 20 Years from now, we will still be utilizing metadata to manage our environments; hopefully, we will get much better at it.

Posted by Todd at August 15, 2006 12:43 PM