Overview of Metadata Analyzer
Are you making a simple code change like renaming or expanding a field or changing a DB2 table, and need to know the effect on the other components of your application? Are you building a new application and need to know what data is available? Or do you need to locate potential relationships between data to help with a data migration project? Whatever the need, the Metadata Analyzer is here to help.
With the Metadata Analyzer, you can collect metadata from all of your applications that use COBOL, PL/I, DB2, IMS, CICS, JCL, and Assembler—automatically, behind the scenes. Administrators set up collections to gather metadata, and guest users simply search the repository for metadata that matches what they are looking for. No setup is required of guest users. Multiple users can simultaneously access the information they each need to determine the impact of changing entities such as includes, jobs, procs, datasets, DB2 columns, fields, etc. . . even if they cross applications!
The Metadata Analyzer's main features
The following are some of the Metadata Analyzer’s many key features:
- Collectors, which collect metadata from your applications. This metadata includes jobs; CICS, DB2, and IMS objects; and program source from COBOL, PL/I, and Assembler.
- The Metadata Analyzer user interface, which allows user to search the Metadata Repository and to display metadata matching their search
- Impact analysis, which lets users see how entities are related to or may be impacted by other entities
- Structure charting, which graphically shows the entities that are related to an entity
- Guest and Administrator roles, which enable all users to access the metadata while establishing a few to collect metadata
What the Metadata Analyzer can do
These key features allow the Metadata Analyzer to help you quickly answer questions about your applications, such as:
- How many programs, includes, datasets, and so on do we have?
- What will be impacted if I change this DB2 column or data item?
- How difficult are the programs in my portfolio to maintain?
- Which jobs use this file?
- Where are the fields in this include referenced?
- Which programs haven't been updated in the last two years?
- If this file is corrupted, which programs, jobs, and transactions could be affected?
How it works
Collection runs add metadata to the repository on the Metadata Server. Clients then access the metadata stored in the repository.
Metadata Analyzer architecture
Metadata Analyzer process
An administrator performs a one-time setup to specify the sources from which to collect metadata, and how the collection should download source files.
During a collection run, the Metadata Analyzer collects the metadata you specify to populate the repository. As the repository is updated with collected entities, relationships between entities are formed. The metadata collected is stored in a shared repository that allows multiple users to access the metadata.
When the collection has finished its run, the metadata is available for viewing. Users perform a search— using the Metadata Analyzer window— which then displays entity information in a GUI format.
To get started
Begin by logging in and connecting to a Metadata Server.
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