A Tale of Two Semantic Layers

In the rapidly evolving landscape of information and data management, the term Semantic Layer is increasingly utilized to describe two different types of ‘layers’ in the modern data stack. The first Semantic Layer is focused on enabling centralized analytics within a company, which we will refer to as a ‘metrics layer’ due to its frequent conflation with that term. The metrics layer is an evolution of the original use of the term ‘Semantic Layer’ and was first coined by Business Objects in the 1990s to describe a product that enabled end users to query databases without knowing SQL or the underlying structure of the databases.  The second Semantic Layer is an abstracted sense-making layer that brings all the data and information managed by a company into context, which we will refer to directly as the ‘Semantic Layer’. The Semantic Layer focuses on linking information structures and is more directly related to the frameworks behind the semantic web.