SchemaLogic Launches new Metadata Partner Program

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SchemaLogic, a software firm providing enterprise metadata management software, announced the addition of Earley and Associates, Carol Hert and Industrial Wisdom to the SchemaLogic solution partner program. SchemaLogic solution partners receive access to technology and training from SchemaLogic in addition to cooperative marketing support. Partners contribute specialized expertise in vertical markets, content management, XML, data integration or information architecture to design and implement solutions using SchemaLogic technology. SchemaLogic and its solution partners help large enterprises manage metadata and business vocabularies from a cross-system perspective, which simplifies information retrieval and semantic interoperability among otherwise disparate information systems.

By joining families of metadata using a shared information model and Web-based change control process, SchemaLogic improves information availability, cuts operational costs and delivers a governance framework for enterprise metadata management. With greater governance made necessary by regulations including Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and Basel II -- along with internally driven data quality initiatives -- many enterprises must review and prove their controls over metadata are documented, transparent and secure. Plus, the challenge of linking "data silos" so they can share information requires an understanding of structure and meaning used in each.

"Reconciling and publishing the vocabularies and content tags used across any database, content management system or XML-based application simplifies information integration, boosts business agility and helps people find the information they need," said Jeff Dirks, president and CEO of SchemaLogic. "We are delighted to work with Earley and Associates, Carol Hert and Industrial Wisdom to deliver cross-system metadata management and taxonomy reconciliation solutions that are the heart of enterprise information architecture."

As organizations seek more efficient IT processes for purposes of cost-cutting, responsiveness and information integration, enterprise metadata management comes into focus to solve widespread incompatibility problems. Different structures, taxonomies and vocabularies used by various databases, content management systems and application software make it hard to share information. SchemaLogic solves this problem by providing a repository or catalog of each system's structure, taxonomy and vocabulary -- collectively known as its schema. SchemaLogic also provides a collaborative process to analyze dependencies, establish a unified information model, manage change, synchronize updates and document the process for compliance and governance purposes.

"In my many years of consulting, teaching and implementing metadata and taxonomy management projects, it has become clear that clients need a shared, authoritative source of metadata standards and agreed-upon vocabularies to help IT systems work together," said Seth Earley, president of Earley and Associates, a Boston-area firm focused on content management strategy and information architecture. "The problem that SchemaLogic solves involves reconciliation, change control and synchronization. It is the only software I've seen to handle this. Because the government now requires compliance and auditability of data used in financial reports, and consequently metadata as well, this is important to the CFO in addition to the CIO."

SchemaLogic removes costs from the metadata management process, cutting 80% of the time associated with changing business vocabularies at one large manufacturing company. The people who manage information are more efficient -- as are the people who seek information -- when metadata, vocabularies and taxonomy are coordinated among various systems.

"With our focus on helping organizations pioneer better ways to deliver content, I can say that SchemaLogic solves two huge problems: reconciling the differences in metadata among systems and controlling vocabularies shared by multiple systems," said Greg Laugero, principle of Industrial Wisdom in Denver, Colorado -- a firm specializing in optimizing multi-lingual content supply chains. "Working with SchemaLogic technology, we can design and deliver metadata management processes that save time and money, improve the ability to retrieve, navigate and combine distributed content, while providing new levels of governance and control."

"This is the unseen, under-automated part of information management that consumes most of the IT staff time in large enterprises today -- getting different systems to talk to each other and stay in synch as things evolve," added Carol Hert, Ph.D., a researcher and consultant specializing in information seeking behavior and related metadata and information system design. "SchemaLogic helps people who organize information to develop an agreed-upon set of business terminology and data structures. Metadata is a necessary finding tool to locate documents, to choose variables in a statistical analysis or navigate a personalized portal. For the first time, we can effectively reconcile the different terms, abbreviations and concepts that different systems use, so they work without boundaries to produce and deliver information."

As with the agreements previously announced with Locus Systems and Innodata Isogen, these new solution partners provide specialized expertise and geographic reach to help serve SchemaLogic's growing account base. As members of the SchemaLogic Solution Partner program, Earley and Associates (www.earley.com), Carol Hert (www.hert-analytics.com) and Industrial Wisdom (www.industrialwisdom.com) provide an array of benefits in marketing, sales, education and technology exchange. SchemaLogic Solution Partners include system integrators and consulting services providers. For partner program information, send email to partners@schemalogic.com.

14.04.2004, SchemaLogic