Information Catalog Manager Administration Guide
Information catalog administrators need to ensure:
- The descriptive data that users need is available.
- The data is easy to find and use.
- The data is as current as it needs to be.
- The data is protected from unauthorized access.
Unless a specific DB2 Universal Database(TM) product is named, throughout
this book the generic terms "DB2 Universal Database" or "DB2 UDB"
are used to denote the DB2 Universal Database that stores your information
catalog on your platform of choice. DB2 Universal Database for
Enterprise - Extended Edition is the follow-on product to DB2 Parallel Edition
and is supported on AIX(R), Windows NT(R), and in the Solaris
Operating Environment.
The tasks of an administrator are in these categories:
- Setting up the information catalog
- You authorize users, create the information catalog, set up some sample
information for your users, and give users access to the software and
resources they need. Description of these tasks begins on page Chapter 1, "Setting up an information catalog".
- Organizing your information resources
- You determine what kinds of resources your organization wants to describe
in your information catalog. You create object types that describe the
characteristics of different kinds of information, and you update and delete
these object types as needed. Description of these tasks begins on page
Chapter 2, "Organizing your information resources".
- Populating the information catalog
- You create objects of various types and place them in your information
catalog. To do this, you translate information into terms with which
users are familiar. Description of these tasks begins on page Chapter 3, "Populating the catalog with information".
- Making the information catalog convenient for users
- You group objects together to make them easier to browse, add contact
names so that users can find someone to ask about the information, and set up
programs so that users can start them and retrieve the information they
want. You can maintain a support facility to inform users
about changes in the information catalog, and a dictionary facility
as a quick reference to terminology used in the information catalog.
Description of these tasks begins on page Chapter 4, "Making the information catalog convenient for users".
- Expanding and automating your information catalog
- You use the Information Catalog Manager tag language to make it easier to
work with large amounts of descriptive data at once. To do this, you
import and export tag language files. You might
extract descriptive data from your organization's existing database
catalogs, modeling tools, and user files. Application programmers can
write their own customized extract program. You combine information
catalogs to keep descriptive data current and appropriately synchronized with
its sources.
You can keep a log of objects, object types, or relationships that are
deleted from your information catalog. You can transfer the log to a
tag language file and use it to duplicate the deletions in other information
catalogs. For example, you can "shadow" information catalogs in a
distributed environment. Description of these tasks begins on page Chapter 5, "Expanding and automating your information catalog".
- Maintaining the Information Catalog Manager
- You might also perform some routine database administration tasks, such as
backing up the information catalog, although these tasks are not part of
managing the Information Catalog Manager. You prevent or solve some of
the problems that your users might have with the Information Catalog
Manager. Description of these tasks begins on page Chapter 7, "Maintaining the Information Catalog Manager".
The Information Catalog Manager provides a graphical
interface to your information catalog
Information Catalog Manager. The Information Catalog Manager also
provides a tag language, which you can use to perform many of the same
tasks. The tag language is more difficult to use because you must learn
syntax rules to code a tag language file, but it is especially powerful for
performing tasks in bulk.
Throughout this book, Information Catalog Manager tasks are described first
as you would perform them using the graphical interface. When there is
a tag language equivalent for performing the Information Catalog Manager task,
it is presented following the user interface description, under a heading
"<task> using the tag language."
To use the user interface, start from the administrators Information
Catalog window, shown here.
The easiest way to use the tag language is to copy and paste the tag
language templates that are provided online directly into your tag language
file. To use an online tag language template:
- Press F1 from any product window (after you open an information
catalog). A help window opens.
- Click Contents at the top of the help window.
- From the table of contents, click the topic for the task you want to
perform and then click the Tag language template you can copy and
modify link that follows the task.
The tag language window opens for that task.
- Click Options and click Copy from the menu to copy
the entire window to the clipboard.
- Paste the template from the clipboard into the desired tag file.
You might need to reformat some of the information pasted from the
clipboard.
- Edit the variables in the template. Short descriptions for these
variables are provided online. For more detailed descriptions, see the
section on the task you want to perform within this book or Appendix D, Tag language for the complete tag language reference.
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