Typically, data assets in an organization are spread across multiple silos. These silos limit users’ access to the data they need to make key business decisions.

In many cases, employees rely on incomplete or inaccurate data. This lack of visibility means that it is difficult to understand and use data to make important business decisions. Data catalogs offer a unified view of all of an organization’s data assets. They can enable users to find, clean, and join data from various sources, while also helping them understand the context of data assets.

Data catalogs also offer a search engine-like user interface, giving users the ability to browse data assets by their business concepts. They also enable users to build data profiles, which are informative summaries of data. These profiles describe the data’s structure, maximum value, and number of files and rows.

Data catalogs provide a single source for metadata that describes the structure of data, its organization, and how it is used. They also record the lineage of the data, including its origin, usage history, and permissions. They can also help an analyst understand the reliability and suitability of data assets.

Data catalogs also provide the ability to integrate data assets into other systems, such as analytics platforms and business intelligence tools. This helps make data more accessible and helps increase the value of the data. It can also reduce the manual workloads involved in managing data.

Data catalogs have evolved since their origin as a data set exposure tool. In recent years, they have become an integral part of data stewardship and data governance.