Understanding Terms

Resource

A resource is an Enterprise Data Catalog object that represents an external data source or metadata repository from where scanners extract metadata. Scanners in Enterprise Data Catalog fetch the metadata from resources. Axon displays resources from the relational sources, file systems such as Amazon S3, Native, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, and HDFS, and Salesforce application from Enterprise Data Catalog. You can also view Business Intelligence (BI) resources, such as Google BigQuery, Tableau, and Cognos.

For more information about resources, see Enterprise Data Catalog Objects.

Physical Field

Physical fields represent a source column or field in an Enterprise Data Catalog resource. You can view different types of Enterprise Data Catalog physical fields, such as columns in relational tables, fields in CSV files, and fields in Salesforce objects, in Axon:

For more information about all the supported physical fields, see Enterprise Data Catalog Objects.

Data Domain

A data domain is a predefined or user-defined object that enables you to discover the functional meaning of data. Examples of data domains include Social Security number, credit card number, and account status. Data domain discovery is the process of discovering the functional meaning of data in the data sources based on the semantics of data.

For more information about data domains, refer the Column and Field Assets and Data Domain Assets topics in the Informatica 10.2.2 Enterprise Data Catalog User Guide.

Data Onboarding Rules

In an Axon system, use data onboarding rules that you can apply for onboarding data sets and attributes from Enterprise Data Catalog. The onboarding rule specifies the objects that you want to include or exclude from onboarding.

For more information about data domains, see Data Onboarding Rules for a System.

Data Quality Rule

A data quality rule is a rule in Informatica Data Quality that checks the quality of the data in your systems. Data quality rules are stored in Informatica Data Quality as rule specifications and rule mapplets. A rule specification is the design of a rule in Informatica Data Quality. It refers to the requirements of a business rule that you can design in the Informatica Analyst Tool. A rule mapplet is an executable rule in Informatica Data Quality. Rule specifications are read-only in the Informatica Developer tool, but rule mapplets are editable templates that you can run on specific data objects.

To know more about rules, rule specifications, and rule mapplets, see the Rule Specification Guide.

Standard Data Quality Rule

A standard data quality rule in Axon is a textual description of a rule that must be run on some data.

For example, if your organization processes automobile insurance claims, you would have some predetermined criteria to determine whether the insurance claim of a particular customer qualifies or not. You might check the age of the car, distance driven, and premium amount paid, and then use a formula to determine whether a specific claim must be processed. In Axon, you can create a Glossary object called “Eligibility for Insurance Claim”, and mention a brief summary of the rule in the Description field. You can then go to the Data Quality tab of the Glossary object to view the standard data quality rule associated with the Glossary.

Local Data Quality Rule

A local data quality rule is an instance of a standard rule that you run on a specific data object. Standard data quality rules are textual descriptions of rules. Based on the Enterprise Data Catalog technical metadata associated with the Axon attributes, Axon automatically creates local data quality rules for the standard rule.

For example, the standard rule “Eligibility for Insurance Claim” helps you understand the eligibility to process a car insurance claim. When a specific customer makes an actual insurance claim for a car, Axon applies the standard rule for this particular claim, and creates a local rule for this specific instance.

A standard rule refers to the textual description of a rule, and a local rule refers to the instance of running the rule on actual data.

Input Parameter

An input parameter refers to a field on which a rule is run. In Axon, you can run rules that have single or multiple input parameters.

Some rules require a single input parameter. For example, if a policy requires that the first name of a person is mandatory, the rule must specify that the First Name field cannot be a null value. In this case, the input parameter is single because the values of the parameter can be either valid or null.

Some rules require several input parameters. For example, if a policy requires that a customer's full name be concatenated from the customer's first and last name, the rule must specify that the Customer Name field is a combination of the First Name and Last Name fields. In this case, the input parameters are multiple because the values of the Customer Name field are generated from two other fields.

For more information on input parameters, refer the Inputs topic in the Rule Specification Guide .