Business Semantics
Business semantics are the information concepts that live in the organization, understandable for both business and IT. Business Semantics describe the business concepts as they are used and needed by the business instead of describing the information from a technical point-of-view.
One important aspect of business semantics is that they are shared between many disparate data sources. Many data sources share the same semantics but have different syntax, or format to describe the same concepts.
The way these business semantics are described is less important. Several approaches can be used such as UML, Object role modeling, XML, etc. This corresponds to Robert Meersman’s statement that semantics are “a (set of) mapping(s) from your representation language to agreed concepts (objects, relationships, behavior) in the real-world”. In the construction of information systems, semantics have always been crucial. In previous approaches, these semantics were left implicit (i.e. In the mind of reader or writer), hidden away in the implementation itself (e.g., in a database table or column code) or informally captured in textual documentation. According do Dave McComb, “The scale and scope of our systems and the amount of information we now have to deal with are straining that model.”
Nowadays, information systems need to interact in a more open manner, and it becomes crucial to formally represent and apply the semantics these systems are concerned with.
Read more about this topic: Business Semantics Management
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)