4

I'm looking for a term that means "non-reference" data i.e. any data in a database that strictly ISN'T reference data.

      Master Data
           /\
          /  \
         /    \
        /      \
       /        \
      /          \
Reference Data   ???

Is there such a term? Would have thought there must be but can't seem to find one - constructive suggestions gratefully received.

StayOnTarget
  • 11,743
  • 10
  • 52
  • 81
Steve Chambers
  • 37,270
  • 24
  • 156
  • 208
  • 1
    Don't know why this had been voted down, it generated some interesting responses and I think this is a useful, pragmatic question. – StayOnTarget Jul 20 '16 at 13:49

4 Answers4

4

It was a while ago I asked this but my own personal favoured answer would be Operational Data, which could be interpreted to mean data that can be modified by business operations.

It is also possible to take this a bit further and broadly divide into three (although there may be some crossover between these):-

  • Reference Data: Fixed for the whole duration of an application.
  • Operational Data: Directly managed by the application during normal business operations.
  • Volatile Data: Can be changed by external processes without being directly controlled by the application. (This may or may not be a subset of Operational Data).
Steve Chambers
  • 37,270
  • 24
  • 156
  • 208
  • What would an example of Transient Data be? – StayOnTarget Jul 20 '16 at 12:33
  • 1
    @DaveInCaz One example is an asset being polled periodically and sending its telemetry data to the application, which then persists its status information. – Steve Chambers Jul 20 '16 at 15:59
  • `Silo`-ed data as well which would be like `Transient` but not be so *day-to-day*; its accessibility too. – ΩmegaMan Sep 17 '20 at 19:12
  • 1
    Also I might consider instead of `Transient` to use `Transactional` which suggests its more dynamic in nature than a staid `Operational` type of data. – ΩmegaMan Sep 17 '20 at 19:22
  • Coming back to this 5 years later I think I may have been confusing my Java keywords and actually meant *volatile* rather than *transient* - in the sense that such data could change unexpectedly (from the point of view of the application) due to something external. Have modified the answer accordingly... – Steve Chambers Sep 18 '20 at 08:23
3

Transaction Data is another possibility. Again using "Transaction" in a broad sense. According to Wikipedia Transaction Data requires a time value.

B.Mo
  • 191
  • 6
  • Hmmm again this is close but no cigar I think. The Wikipedia article says "Transaction data always has a time dimension". So it sounds like this is a subset of "non-reference" data since time might not be relevant. E.g. coming back to the example above, the number of milligrams of each ingredient in a cigarette is "non-reference" data without a time element. – Steve Chambers Apr 25 '13 at 13:24
1

Customer Data perhaps? Using "Customer" in a broad sense. So it might cover an internal list of Departments as well as Purchases.

B.Mo
  • 191
  • 6
  • Good effort and nice to get a reply after winning a "Tumbleweed" badge for this one. But I can't help feeling a better term is needed as the customer probably thinks they own their reference data as well. E.g. for a cigarette company the reference data might include lists of ingredients and the "non-reference" data might include sales of each product. Could be wrong but I'd think of both these as Customer Data. – Steve Chambers Mar 18 '13 at 16:14
0

Well my answer is proference data or inference data as opposite to Reference Data. Profer with an O not an E. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profer

Where I focus on using the stem / root -fer. For refer means to carry back to.

Proference Data, as in produced (or product) data. Profer means to carry forth to or carry over to or carry out to. And I don’t mean proffer (which is like legal offer)

Inferenced Data, is probably the only other option as it means to carry out to in logical steps.

The link is where I ask a related question: https://english.stackexchange.com/q/584642/440001

L92MD14
  • 1
  • 2