Data lineage is the journey data takes from its creation through its transformations over time. It describes a certain dataset’s origin, movement, characteristics and quality. This interesting topic came to us from TDWI in their article, “The Growing Role of Data Lineage in Modern Data Management.”
In additional to tracking individual data flows, data lineage brings them together so you can draw a comprehensive data map that many types of users and applications can access. When data lineage functionality is fully automated it can autonomously track, record and catalog data with little or no human intervention.
Tracing the source of data is not a simple task. Many large organizations have acquired several different systems with various data entry points and transformation rules for data as it moves into and across the organization.
Data is crucial to every organization’s survival. For that reason, businesses must think about the flow of data across multiple systems that fuel organizational business strategy and decision-making.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
