Databases and the associated metadata are essential building blocks for the information hierarchy required to support business decisions. Databases store information and it is vital to the proper operation of any organization’s business that these be well-managed and controlled. There are a number of data catalog tools available to help companies manage their databases effectively and efficiently.

A data catalog tool is a metadata management tool specifically designed to aid companies locate and manage huge amounts of data such as multiple tables, documents and databases within their ERP, human resource, finance and e-commerce applications and other such sources such as social networking feeds. These tools work by browsing documents that contain metadata and then allowing users to search this data to locate specific data or to retrieve a particular set of data as and when necessary. This reduces the time taken to access databases and data in a usable format and makes it easier to retrieve what you need when you need it. These tools work by establishing relationships between entities and between various forms of metadata and are used to provide indexing and navigation for searching large databases. These tools allow you to manage your databases in a highly efficient manner, and allow users to make sense of a complex data environment.

A data dictionary is basically a glossary of terms that describes entity relationships within a database so that users can easily associate them with other entities. The data dictionary will typically include a business glossary along with a number of other terms and relationships. For example, a data classification system may have a business glossary, a domain glossary and a technical glossary. This enables users to quickly identify entity names, descriptions of data fields and data types while simultaneously identifying other metadata necessary to describe the entities in the database.