Datacatalogi

Datacatalogi are inventories of data assets within an organization or ecosystem, designed to facilitate discovery, governance, and responsible use of data. They catalog datasets, tables, reports, APIs, and other data artifacts, linking each item with metadata describing its content, context, provenance, quality, usage, and access rights. Core metadata types include descriptive, technical, and administrative information such as data owner, license, retention, and lineage.

Typical features include search and discovery, tagging and classification, data lineage visualization, data quality indicators, data stewardship assignments, and access controls. They support data usage workflows and enable data sharing while enforcing policies.

Interoperability is often achieved via standards such as DCAT (Data Catalog Vocabulary) from W3C, along with other metadata schemas and APIs. Catalogs may be standalone products or integrated into broader data governance platforms, existing in both commercial and open-source forms.

Users include data scientists, analysts, data engineers, and business stakeholders; common use cases include data discovery, impact analysis, regulatory compliance, data democratization, and controlled data sharing.

Challenges include keeping metadata accurate and up-to-date, achieving metadata completeness, ensuring data quality, addressing privacy and security, and breaking down data silos. Best practices emphasize role-based access, clear data stewardship responsibilities, automated metadata harvesting, and alignment with governance policies.

Datacatalogi support modern data management by making data assets more visible, traceable, and governable.