In assembling the enterprise objects into a managed catalog environment, using combinations of directory, digital certificate and database technologies, we can build up a knowledge base of what is contained within and around the enterprise. When we relate those objects together in a consistent fashion, based on the GEM, we gain the capability to manage the detailed information about the objects themselves, and the details about the relations.

We now can manage the enterprise, with all of its living and inanimate components, as a self-informing, and potentially self-aware entity.