Fusion Metadata Registry

Inside FMR

The heart of Fusion Metadata Registry is its structural metadata repository - essentially a database that implements the SDMX 3.0 information model.

All structural metadata objects are stored according to this model which provides a rigorous dependency graph that defines and enforces the metadata's referential integrity. This strongly enforced referential integrity provides confidence that the metadata model is always complete - a DSD for instance can never exist without its referenced Codelists.

FMR provides two interfaces

• Web user interface: a web interface for interactively discovering and retrieving structures, structure authoring and maintenance, and system administration.
• REST application programming interface: a REST web services API for automation that implements the SDMX v2 structure REST API specification, with additional extensions for creating and modifying structures, data validatio and data transformation.
  - FMR 10 implements the SDMX 2.1 registry specification.
  - FMR 11 implements the SDMX 3.0 registry specification.

In addition to its core role as a structural metadata registry, FMR's integrated data processing services support:

• Data validation: submitted data is checked against nine separate quality rules including consistency with the DSD, and compliance with any Data Constraints
• Data conversion: conversion of SDMX datasets between transmission formats including EDI, XML, JSON, CSV and Excel
• Data mapping: transformation of a dataset to a different DSD using SDMX structure mapping

Finally for for data collectors, FMR's Excel data collection forms generator generates cross-tabulation data collection forms allowing data reporters to simply fill in the blank cells with the required observation values. The precise content and layout of these forms are defined by creating templates from which a personalised form is generated for each data provider.

Key Use Cases

Metadata management

• Centralise and control structural, semantic and transformation metadata
• Author and maintain metadata
• Drive statistics production using centrally-controlled metadata
• Provide an SDMX-compliant a REST structure API

Statistics production

• Validate data for compliance with structural metadata, constraints and business rules
• Execute complex data mapping (SDMX structure maps, VTL)
• Convert data between formats (convert between SDMX formats)

Data collection

• Collect data using metadata-driven Excel forms
• Map incoming data into standardised structures

Data reporting

• Prepare SDMX data for reporting
• Validate data for compliance with the data collector's specifications prior to reporting

Capacity

• No fixed limits on the number of users
• No fixed limits on the volume of structures - in practice the volume of structures is limited by the available compute platform memory

Docker

A self-contained Fusion Metadata Registry image complete with a MySQL database suitable for testing, personal use and light production work loads.

1. Install Docker Desktop

Execute the following commands using the Windows Command App, Windows PowerShell, Linux terminal or Mac terminal.

2. Start FMR in a container

docker run --name fmr -p 8080:8080 sdmxio/fmr-mysql:latest

Visit http://localhost:8080

The container will take between 1 and 2 minutes to start - so be patient!

There is a single Root User Account:
Username: root
Password: password

Log in to administer the system, and create, load and maintain SDMX structures.

5. When finished - stop the container

docker stop fmr

More on Docker Hub.

Install on Windows, Linux or Apple Mac

Fusion Metadata Registry is a Java web applications that will run on most Windows, Linux or Apple Mac machines with a minimum of 4GB memory.

There are three key pre-requisities:

• A Java Runtime Environment (JRE or JDK) - Amazon Corretto 17 is a good free-to-use choice
• A Java web application server - we recommend Apache Tomcat 9.0
• A database service - MySQL, Oracle or SQL Server are supported

Take a look at the quick start guide