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8 Enterprise Data Governance

IT experts concerned themselves with establishing models
that had a life expectancy that was not that of the
processing. Relational algebra, and its translation to normal
3
forms, has contributed to the quality of data models . This
strict modeling has given birth to databases placed at the
heart of IT systems, giving greater stability and, once again
has been widely exploited by companies. The organization of
an IT Department left room for data administration. This
administration was not only concerned with technical
models; it was also concerned with business models,
supported by semantic data dictionaries. Data
administrators, a valid role within an IT Department, bring
together the knowledge of these models (conceptual, logical)
in order to pool modeling resources and favor further re-use.
These administrators interested themselves in all types of
data, from reference and master data (i.e. those shared by
application systems) to transactional data.

Today, few organizations have maintained data
administration at the business model level. For the most
part, they have been lost in a technical database
administration, necessary but insufficient to guarantee the
durability of business models.

The addition of tactical databases around the heart of an
IT system, but also the silo approach and software packages,
has led to a fragmented architecture and poor documentation
of data. Contemporary IT has not been able to completely
preserve its database heritage.

3. The normal form applies to a group of data which forms a class, an
st
entity or even a table depending on the vocabulary used. In the 1 normal
form, each data element is atomic (at its lowest level). In the 2 normal
nd
form, a data element depends on the whole of the primary key and not a
part. In the 3 rd normal form, all the data that does not belong to the
primary key is not dependent on a non-key data element. The normal form
is cumulative and allows us to avoid functional data dependency.