Introduction to SAP ERP catalog sources

A source system is any system that contains data or metadata. For example, SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP ERP) is a source system from which you can extract metadata through an SAP ERP catalog source. A catalog source is an object that represents and contains metadata from the source system.

Before you extract metadata from a source system, you first create and register a catalog source that represents the source system. Then you configure capabilities for the catalog source. A capability is a task that Metadata Command Center can perform, such as metadata extraction, lineage discovery, data profiling, data classification, or glossary association.

When Metadata Command Center extracts metadata, Data Governance and Catalog displays the extracted metadata and its attributes as technical assets. You can then perform tasks such as analyzing the assets, viewing lineage, and creating links between those assets and their business context.

Capability	Description
Incremental metadata extraction	An incremental metadata extraction extracts only the changed and new objects since the last catalog source job run. Incremental metadata extraction doesn’t remove deleted objects from the catalog and doesn’t extract metadata of code-based objects if applicable.
Data Profiling and Quality	- Data Profiling. Assesses source metadata and analyzes the collected statistics to discover content and structure, such as value distribution, patterns, and data types. - Data Quality. Measures the reliability of the data and enables data usage.
Data Observability	Identifies anomalies in the characteristics of the data that you profile.
Data Classification	Data classification is the process of identifying and organizing data into relevant categories based on the functional meaning of the data. Classifying data can help your organization manage risks, compliance, and data security.
Glossary Association	You can associate terms that are in the glossary with technical assets to provide user-friendly business names to technical assets. Glossary Association automatically associates glossary terms with technical assets or recommends glossary terms that you can manually associate with technical assets in Data Governance and Catalog.