Metadata is data that describes data and other structures, such as database objects, business rules, and processes. Each of the ETL's provided as part of the reporting solution is metadata; the database schemas are also metadata.
The metadata provided by BIA Reporting is stored on the hard disk in the folder structure described in Chapter 2. This metadata needs to be imported into the database and ETL tool. This is done by using the build script which is detailed in the next section.
Before detailing how to import the metadata using the build script, it is important to understand how the ETL metadata is broken into separate files and what these files are used for. This folder and file structure must be adhered to during the customization of the reporting solution also.
Within the ETL folder in the Reporting\Components\Core \ETL folder there are two separate folders: one for Oracle and one for DB2. The following files are contained in each of these folders:
The reasons why the ETL metadata files are separated and not stored in one metadata file is for concurrency. As the ETL's can be imported or exported to or from the ETL tool to disk multiple developers can work on separate ETL's at the same time.
As already explained all BIA Reporting metadata is in the Reporting\Components\Core\ETL folder. With the use of the build script the metadata can be loaded into the database and ETL tool. However if the developer needs to customize this metadata the developers must copy the metadata to the Reporting\Components\Custom folder and make the changes here. The reasons for this are explained in the next chapter Customizations and Upgrades.