Data Catalog

A data catalog is a searchable inventory of an organisation’s data assets: what tables exist, what their columns mean, who owns them, how fresh they are, where they came from (lineage), and who’s allowed to use them. It is the metadata layer that makes a large data estate findable — the difference between asking a colleague which of four revenue tables is real and looking it up.

Catalogs harvest most metadata automatically (schemas, query logs, lineage) but live or die on the human parts: descriptions, ownership, and certification. An unmaintained catalog quietly becomes another stale document — the tool only works when curation is someone’s actual job.

Go deeper: What Is a Data Catalog, and Do You Need One?