What Is an Information Repository?

The repository is the center of shared metadata. In its most basic form, a repository is usually a repository for document, application, and object information. Often, a company brings together a lot of different information in the form of a database. Some are related to the staff, some are related to products, marketing, sales, etc. Each database has a different structure, elements, attributes, metadata (information about the data), and so on. Sometimes companies may want to share this information so that people across the company can access, understand, and use it. The repository provides such an "integrated environment."