CHANGING REFERENCE DATA TABLE NAMES

By Malcolm Chisholm

Reference data is often thought of as being slow to change, and in fact is sometimes called “static”.  Of course, in the aggregate, reference data changes frequently, which is one of the reasons that Reference Data Management (RDM) exists.  When we think of this, it is usually the reference data codes and descriptions that are the object of focus.   Yet, the name of the reference data table is also something that can change, albeit rarely.

We have seen a change in the name of a reference data table this month in the case of RAMON (Reference And Management Of Nomenclature), where “Waste operations” was changed to “Waste management operations”.    

This raises some interesting issues.  One is why such a change is needed.  The answer is likely to be that an official name has to be used, or the name has to be changed as part of a need to disambiguate the table from another.  These reasons indicate that there will be a need to communicate the name change to staff who need to be informed of it.  Mechanisms used to communicate changes in codes and descriptions may not be useable to communicate changes about table names.  The implication is that consideration should be given to how a change to a table name should be communicated.       

Also, it is necessary to keep an inventory of tables.  This might include historical names.  There is an increasing shift towards using metadata repositories containing information about databases, tables, and columns, so the need to manage reference data table names could be seen as just part of this.  However, it is not quite this simple.  The names of reference data tables may well be used in screens, reports, and similar outputs.  And this is the business (“logical”) name, not the physical name.  Such a need is quite different from anything seen with other kinds of database tables.  This requirement will have implications for any metadata repository.

As we can see, changes to the names of reference data tables may be quite rare, but managing these changes is a definite part of RDM.