Patent ID: 7865480

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of validating metadata for an object model stored in a database, comprising: identifying a first subject of validation, wherein the first subject is one of an object, an attribute, an association and a collection of objects; determining a context of metadata validation based on the first subject, the context including one of a) the first subject, and b) the first subject and one or more additional subjects; querying the database to retrieve a set of objects requiring validation, the set of objects determined by the first subject of validation and the determined context; querying the database to retrieve one or more validation rules for each object in the set of objects, the one or more validation rules stored independently from the set of objects requiring validation, wherein the one or more validation rules retrieved from the database is based on the context of metadata validation, wherein retrieving the one or more validation rules includes identifying rules in rule files based on the subject type of each subject to be validated; and applying the validation rules to each object in the set of objects, wherein applying the validation rules results in one of partially and completely validating the metadata for the object model, a partial validating of the object model allowing an existing portion of the metadata to be validated before all metadata for the object model is determined, and occurs prior to deployment of the object model, a deployment of the object model allowing the object model to be used to store data according to the object model.