Data Reference Model

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The Data Reference Model Collaboration Process DRM Collaboration Process.jpg
The Data Reference Model Collaboration Process

The Data Reference Model (DRM) is one of the five reference models of the Federal Enterprise Architecture.

Contents

Overview

The DRM is a framework whose primary purpose is to enable information sharing and reuse across the United States federal government via the standard description and discovery of common data and the promotion of uniform data management practices. The DRM describes artifacts which can be generated from the data architectures of federal government agencies. The DRM provides a flexible and standards-based approach to accomplish its purpose. The scope of the DRM is broad, as it may be applied within a single agency, within a community of interest, or cross-community of interest.

Data Reference Model topics

DRM structure

The DRM provides a standard means by which data may be described, categorized, and shared. These are reflected within each of the DRM’s three standardization areas:

DRM Version 2

The Data Reference Model version 2 released in November 2005 is a 114-page document with detailed architectural diagrams and an extensive glossary of terms.

The DRM also make many references to ISO standards specifically the ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry standard.

DRM usage

The DRM is not technically a published technical interoperability standard such as web services, it is an excellent starting point for data architects within federal and state agencies. Any federal or state agencies that are involved with exchanging information with other agencies or that are involved in data warehousing efforts should use this document as a guide.

See also

Related Research Articles

In metadata, the term data element is an atomic unit of data that has precise meaning or precise semantics. A data element has:

  1. An identification such as a data element name
  2. A clear data element definition
  3. One or more representation terms
  4. Optional enumerated values Code (metadata)
  5. A list of synonyms to data elements in other metadata registries Synonym ring

MPEG-7 is a multimedia content description standard. It was standardized in ISO/IEC 15938. This description will be associated with the content itself, to allow fast and efficient searching for material that is of interest to the user. MPEG-7 is formally called Multimedia Content Description Interface. Thus, it is not a standard which deals with the actual encoding of moving pictures and audio, like MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. It uses XML to store metadata, and can be attached to timecode in order to tag particular events, or synchronise lyrics to a song, for example.

In computing and data management, data mapping is the process of creating data element mappings between two distinct data models. Data mapping is used as a first step for a wide variety of data integration tasks, including:

A metadata registry is a central location in an organization where metadata definitions are stored and maintained in a controlled method.

The ISO/IEC 11179 Metadata Registry (MDR) standard is an international ISO standard for representing metadata for an organization in a metadata registry. It documents the standardization and registration of metadata to make data understandable and shareable.

The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States. NIEM represents a collaborative partnership of agencies and organizations across all levels of government and with private industry. The purpose of this partnership is to effectively and efficiently share critical information at key decision points throughout the whole of the justice, public safety, emergency and disaster management, intelligence, and homeland security enterprise. NIEM is designed to develop, disseminate, and support enterprise-wide information exchange standards and processes that will enable jurisdictions to automate information sharing.

A representation term is a word, or a combination of words, that semantically represent the data type of a data element. A representation term is commonly referred to as a class word by those familiar with data dictionaries. ISO/IEC 11179-5:2005 defines representation term as a designation of an instance of a representation class As used in ISO/IEC 11179, the representation term is that part of a data element name that provides a semantic pointer to the underlying data type. A Representation class is a class of representations. This representation class provides a way to classify or group data elements.

In metadata, a data element definition is a human readable phrase or sentence associated with a data element within a data dictionary that describes the meaning or semantics of a data element.

A federal enterprise architecture framework (FEAF) is the U.S. reference enterprise architecture of a federal government. It provides a common approach for the integration of strategic, business and technology management as part of organization design and performance improvement.

A Semantic Service Oriented Architecture (SSOA) is an architecture that allows for scalable and controlled Enterprise Application Integration solutions. SSOA describes a sophisticated approach to enterprise-scale IT infrastructure. It leverages rich, machine-interpretable descriptions of data, services, and processes to enable software agents to autonomously interact to perform critical mission functions. SSOA is technically founded on three notions:

  1. The principles of Service-oriented architecture (SOA);
  2. Standards Based Design (SBD); and
  3. Semantics-based computing.
RM-ODP

Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) is a reference model in computer science, which provides a co-ordinating framework for the standardization of open distributed processing (ODP). It supports distribution, interworking, platform and technology independence, and portability, together with an enterprise architecture framework for the specification of ODP systems.

Geospatial metadata is a type of metadata applicable to geographic data and information. Such objects may be stored in a geographic information system (GIS) or may simply be documents, data-sets, images or other objects, services, or related items that exist in some other native environment but whose features may be appropriate to describe in a (geographic) metadata catalog.

Knowledge Discovery Metamodel (KDM) is a publicly available specification from the Object Management Group (OMG). KDM is a common intermediate representation for existing software systems and their operating environments, that defines common metadata required for deep semantic integration of Application Lifecycle Management tools. KDM was designed as the OMG's foundation for software modernization, IT portfolio management and software assurance. KDM uses OMG's Meta-Object Facility to define an XMI interchange format between tools that work with existing software as well as an abstract interface (API) for the next-generation assurance and modernization tools. KDM standardizes existing approaches to knowledge discovery in software engineering artifacts, also known as software mining.

Language resource management - Lexical markup framework, is the ISO International Organization for Standardization ISO/TC37 standard for natural language processing (NLP) and machine-readable dictionary (MRD) lexicons. The scope is standardization of principles and methods relating to language resources in the contexts of multilingual communication.

Metadata Data about data

Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:

View model

A view model or viewpoints framework in systems engineering, software engineering, and enterprise engineering is a framework which defines a coherent set of views to be used in the construction of a system architecture, software architecture, or enterprise architecture. A view is a representation of a whole system from the perspective of a related set of concerns.

A metadata standard is a requirement which is intended to establish a common understanding of the meaning or semantics of the data, to ensure correct and proper use and interpretation of the data by its owners and users. To achieve this common understanding, a number of characteristics, or attributes of the data have to be defined, also known as metadata.

In computing, a data definition specification (DDS) is a guideline to ensure comprehensive and consistent data definition. It represents the attributes required to quantify data definition. A comprehensive data definition specification encompasses enterprise data, the hierarchy of data management, prescribed guidance enforcement and criteria to determine compliance.

Aristotle Metadata Registry

The Aristotle Metadata Registry is commercial Metadata Registry software based on the ISO/IEC 11179 standard for Metadata Registries. It is influenced by the AIHW Meteor Metadata Registry and the Canadian Institute of Health Information Indicator Bank. Aristotle-MDR is designed to describe data holdings databases and associated structural metadata. The Aristotle Metadata Registry was publicly launched at the 2015 IASSIST Conference in Toronto. In 2016, the founders of the Aristotle Metadata Registry were hired by Data61 to continue development of the platform.

IEC Common Data Dictionary

IEC Common Data Dictionary is a metadata registry based on the data model defined in IEC 61360-2/ISO 13584-42 with an enhancement of its modelling capability adopted from IEC 62656-1. The description of the data model for dictionary developers in particular for those in electrotechnical domains is given in IEC 61360-1. Currently the scope of the registry is extended to cover all ISO and IEC domains, thus it is no longer "IEC CDD", nevertheless it is hosted by IEC-CO and is maintained by IEC SC 3D with a joint working group formed between IEC SC 3D and ISO TC 184/SC4. The data model of the CDD references ISO/IEC 11179 for the identification of the registered elements. It is used to host product classifications. - This means the IEC CDD is a database providing classifications and metadata definitions for describing products. The IEC CDD is an International Standard in the form of an online database, not in the form of (e-)paper, and is given the standard number IEC 61360-4 DB. Thus the metadata registered into the database has the status of International Standard. The procedure to add a new definition or a set of definitions is based on the IEC database procedure, described in Annex SL of the IEC supplementary of the ISO/IEC directive Part 1. This process for updating the content is called a "Change Request" and when a Change Request is issued and adopted, the proposed item will become part of the International Standard, IEC 61360-4 DB, within approximately 6 months.