Domains & Models
What is a Metadata Domain ..?
Domains & Models
Pentaho Metadata Editor (PME) is a tool that builds Pentaho metadata Domains and Models. A Pentaho metadata model maps the physical structure of your database into a logical business model. These mappings are stored in a centralized metadata repository and allow administrators to:
create business-language definitions for complex database tables
decrease the cost and impact associated with low level database changes
set security parameters limiting user's report access to data
drive formatting on text, date and numeric data improving report maintenance
localize the information depending on the user's regional settings
The domain encapsulates all of the business objects created, stored and used in the metadata layer. A domain may consist of one or more connections, one or more models, security information, business tables, business views, categories, columns and concepts.
A Metadata Editor domain is composed of:
Physical Layer
The Physical Layer of a Pentaho domain encompasses connections, physical tables and physical columns. These objects represent the database(s) you are trying to model and enrich with metadata. The Physical Layer is not considered part of the business model, because not all connections defined in the Physical Layer will be used in every business model.
Business Layer
The Abstract Business Layer is the heavy lifter in the metadata business model. The business model encompasses the Abstract Business Layer and the Business View.
In the Abstract Business Layer, you have business tables, business columns, and business relationships.
Business Views
The Business View is the part of the business model that applications will operate against, and end-users will see. The Business View is nothing more than "buckets" (called categories) for you to re-arrange and re-organize your business columns in a fashion that makes sense to the consumers of the data.
In the Business View, you can create any number of categories and arrange your business columns in those categories however it best suits your business, mixing and matching columns that derived from different business tables, even adding business columns more than once to different categories. The only restriction to the Business View is you cannot add the same business column more than once to a single category.
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