Governance
Demand a semantic-layer export before you sign
The interchange standard your vendors joined is the exit door for your metric definitions. One paragraph for the next contract.
The Cloud Practice1 min readGovernance
Most of the data platform vendors on your shortlist have joined the Open Semantic Interchange initiative, now incubating at Apache as Ossie, with a first specification already finalized. Membership is marketing until it is in your contract.
The asset at stake is your metric definitions: the encoded agreement about what "net revenue" means, accumulated over years of arguments you do not want to re-hold. Today those definitions live in whatever format your BI or semantic tool prefers, which means they leave when it lets them.
The one-paragraph ask for any renewal or selection this year: the vendor commits to exporting semantic models in the OSI interchange format, or to a documented migration path to it, with a date. Members will sign it; they joined publicly. Non-members will reveal something useful by declining.
The work on your side is a morning: list where metric definitions currently live, and mark which have any export at all. Most inventories find at least one tool where the answer is "screenshots".
Definitions are the part of the platform you actually own. Make the paperwork agree.