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23 www.microsoft.com/sharepoint
2010, and other Office applications via custom code. SharePoint search can also use the
BCS to index external data; therefore, Office applications and SharePoint Server use the
BCS to access external data by using external content types.
Managed Metadata Service
The managed metadata service is a service application that enables the use of managed
metadata and allows you to share content types across site collections and across Web
applications. The service publishes a term store and content types, and the metadata is
consumed via the managed metadata connection. A managed metadata service and
connection are created when the metadata service application is created.
Managed Metadata Service Application
Creating the service application requires the administrator to specify the database to be
used as the term store. When you create new managed terms, or when users add
managed keywords, these terms are stored in the database. Like other service
applications, the managed metadata service can be published to provide access to other
Web applications. When a service application is published, a URL to the service is
created. The administrator of another Web application can create a connection to your
service by using this URL.
In addition to sharing metadata, you can also use the managed metadata service to
share content types. By creating a new managed metadata service and specifying a site
collection as the content type hub, you can share all content types in the site collection’s
content type gallery.
You can create multiple managed metadata service applications. This provides the
capability to share multiple term stores and content types from multiple site collections.
Each service must specify a different term store during the creation process, and a new
database will be created if it does not exist.