Apply Metadata Properties and Concepts

Presumably the end goal when creating a metadata domain is to have a model that is available to end-users and applications that allows them to consistently and richly enhance the data with which they are working. Whether that be through formatting, security metadata, or some other custom metadata, it all should result in a more efficient, consistent, clearer and smarter view of the data.

So far, you have walked through modeling your database in a manner that is more intuitive than its physical representation. The second half of the metadata work is defining the metadata. The Pentaho metadata paradigm uses the term concept to mean a collection of metadata properties that can be applied to a given business object (business table or column, for example).

A "property" has an identifier (a key into a map actually) and a value. This collection of properties is the map of attributes that you want to apply to a particular business object, such as a business column or business table. The concept IS the metadata you define for your business objects. Each business object (physical table, business table, columns, and so on) has its own concept whose properties override all other InheritedConcept or ParentConcept concepts.

Concepts can also be defined independent of any business object and can be structured in an inheritance hierarchy for better organization and management of your metadata. These independent concepts can then be applied to one or more business objects as a ParentConcept.

Refer to Introducing the Pentaho Metadata Editor for details regarding concepts and how they are used.