Business Glossary, Data Dictionary, and Data Catalog?

You might have heard these terms before while working with businesses. But if you are still not sure about their differences, their significance, and what are they actually used for, this article is for you. Here I have tried to demystify these terms in easy-to-understand words.

Business Glossary

What is a Business Glossary?

It is used to define the meaning of business terms. Hence, it is the collection of business terms with their unique definitions and other important information.

In different industries, the meaning of the same business terms differ, so to prevent the developer/analyst from making wrong assumptions, we use the business glossary. Not only at the industry level, but two departments in an organization may also be using the same term from two different perspectives. In that case, you need a department-level business glossary. Remember the glossary has only unique definitions for a given business term. So it becomes important to document those definitions in a central place where anybody has access.

Also, there is something called Business Dictionary, here a single business term can have more than one definition. Uniqueness is not the key here.