Tell me more ×
Database Administrators Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for database professionals who wish to improve their database skills and learn from others in the community. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 0 down vote favorite

I have heard the term "master table" thrown around by our data services department and I'm wondering where that term was coined from or if it is something they made up. From what I gather their "master table" is a shmorgishborg of data from various tables of which they run queries against. It seems ridiculous to me and the table is hardly normalized, but I'm curious about where the name comes from.

share|improve this question
I would say it is there own term or reference...not every table has to be normalized, it may do what they need it to do. – Shawn Melton Oct 13 '12 at 1:20
2  
why don't you simply ask one of the team? – Max Vernon Oct 13 '12 at 4:44
They may have coined the phrase based on Master Data, which is Enterprise wide reference data, giving you "one version of the truth" for things like clients or products, but the description you have given doesn't sound much like this – Pete Carter Oct 13 '12 at 8:30
@MaxVernon I did ask and they only could tell me what is on that table, but not where the name came from. – Sn3akyP3t3 Oct 14 '12 at 3:16
@PeteCarter & (Shawn Melton) I'm thinking it must have derived from a mix of an existing term used in the industry and something of their own reference. I thought there was an easier answer. I think those that know the truth are no longer employees. The legacy of predecessors I guess. – Sn3akyP3t3 Oct 14 '12 at 3:21
show 2 more comments

closed as too localized by Jack Douglas♦ Oct 15 '12 at 9:02

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.