Sharing Metadata with On-Premises and Cloud Applications

Many of today’s enterprises are going through a shift in application landscapes as they increasingly move from on-premises to cloud applications.

There are two primary reasons for this shift. The first is that many cloud applications provide the same level of service—or in some cases better service—than the on-premises version. Moving to the cloud also reduces IT overhead by eliminating reliance on costly resources such as application servers, database servers, and database admin teams.

However, not every enterprise is willing or able to make a wholesale move to the cloud. Some organizations rely on business applications that don’t have an acceptable cloud counterpart. Others are wary of moving their most sensitive data off-premises and into the cloud. These scenarios require metadata to be managed for both on-premises and cloud applications simultaneously because metadata management and governance requirements apply regardless of the infrastructure. 

With the high volume of data being generated and consumed by enterprises every day, keeping metadata synchronized across every system is essential. Let’s look at some of the common metadata management challenges enterprises face when applications are spread across different infrastructures and how EPMware helps keep this metadata accurate and consistent. 

Why It’s Hard to Share Metadata Between On-Premises and Cloud Applications

Syncing metadata across disparate systems is hard. When those systems don‘t even share an infrastructure, things have the potential to get messy, fast.

Many organizations don’t have the right technology in place to automate master data management in these complex environments. When applications are not tied to a centralized master data platform, changes must be manually entered and shared by admins. These processes are time-consuming and prone to human error. 

Depending on the number of changes per month per system, manual governance of these changes can take longer and lead to slower reporting times. However, the bigger threat is when your reporting systems are fed inconsistent and inaccurate metadata, the resulting data, analytics, and intelligence becomes untrustworthy and essentially worthless. 

Perceived security implications also exist when sharing metadata with on-premises and cloud applications. Despite evidence to the contrary, some organizations consider it risky to keep metadata in the cloud, especially if it is PII, HIPAA, or GDPR data. 

Using a metadata management platform that is SOC2 Type2 compliant, or FEDRAMP compliant, is a good way to mitigate risk. It’s also important to keep in mind that metadata may not be useful to bad actors without the underlying data, which makes it a less attractive target.

Many metadata management solutions aren’t equipped to handle the operational and security challenges presented by heterogeneous infrastructures. However, EPMware is designed to manage this type of complexity and facilitate sharing of metadata no matter where your applications reside.

How EPMware Helps Enterprises Share Metadata Between Application Landscapes

EPMware’s all-in-one master data management and data governance solution allows on-premises and cloud applications to communicate with and subscribe to metadata changes across systems. Because we use cloud to cloud integrations and on-premise communication agents to deploy changes on-premises and in the cloud, you can easily manage and govern your metadata from a single interface, regardless of which environment it lives in.

EPMware employs plug-and-play business adapters that integrate seamlessly with both on-premises and cloud applications. The central interface lets users and admins know when an application is ready for data loading or reporting by clearly displaying when the target application successfully subscribes to the metadata.

Manage Metadata Where It Lives

As enterprise application infrastructures increase in complexity, metadata management must evolve to keep pace. Without a strategy in place that spans both on-premises and cloud applications, the metadata you rely on to guide analytics and intelligence will become inconsistent and inaccurate. 

EPMware’s unified metadata management and data governance solution can help ensure your metadata is synchronized and accessible across every business application and every infrastructure. 

Download the Trane Technologies success story to learn how EPMware helped Trane simplify its metadata administration and replace manual data governance processes and application updates with a more automated solution.