5 Reasons Why Data Catalogs Are Vital for Data Management | What is the point of collecting and storing data if accessing it is going to suck? To a large extent, data access is the light of the entire data management circuit and thus needs to shine bright. However, easy access to data has never been a swift task for data owners. For your available data sets to make any business value, cataloging your database proves to be an excellent solution. Read on to what data catalogs are and essential for overall data management.
Data Catalog Defined
A data catalog collects metadata integrated with appropriate search tools to help an analyst or a data user find a particular data set. When adequately built by the right data experts, data catalogs can serve as a data warehouse for business users and other stakeholders listed as beneficiaries. However vast or small, this repository of datasets is vital for all the processes in managing data.
In a modern data catalog, certain features may also be used as metrics in measuring the purposefulness of the catalog. Manually cataloging data is almost impossible considering the colossal size of data inventory and thus, requires some level of automation. With current advancements in machine learning, metadata management, and data catalog solutions, we ultimately prove how our lives can be made easier with advancements in managing data.
Data catalogs for data management act as the conduit for projecting the management results. A weak data catalog reflects poor data management and ultimately, a weak data ecosystem that may be far off the initial business terms, goals, and objectives.
Having access to data doesn’t just involve searching for datasets. Still, beyond that, the pace and ease of access establish a data catalog’s role in the overall data management process. Specifically, here are five reasons why the importance of data catalogs cannot be overemphasized.
- Competitive Advantage
Today, every business is one way or another into some form of data mining, And no business collects data just for fun. Just as your business worked to collect, store, and efficiently manage the data, it, in turn, needs to work for you. That said, a comparatively easier access to data by your digital engineer, your entire data analytics team, and even your customers, can give you an edge ahead of the competitive curve.
- Convenient Data Curation
Data in itself is raw. So, without interpretation or any other form of processing, it might be of very minimal value for data teams and owners. Data curation involves the management of collected data to meet the needs and interests of a particular group. And with efficient data catalogs, curation efforts by internal data teams or cross-collaboration with external players proves very helpful.
- Reduction in Errors
Being able to detect errors in a data system quickly is an indicator of a well-built data catalog. The ease with which any data can be searched for and found increases the capacity to restore data defects, ensure data quality, and ultimately uphold your business’s data integrity.
- Improvements in Data Analysis
Arguably data analysis is an external function of its collection. If data satisfies the appropriate data preparation process, the analysis runs smoothly. One value a data catalog can bring to a data management process is the ease of analysis. And especially in this era of self-service analytics, using Business Intelligence BI empowers almost everyone (even those with little IT background) in data analysis.
- Efficient Maintenance
The world we live in is not stale; nothing stays the same forever. In effect, data collected today may be of minimal relevance to the future. One data management function which ensures management catches up with the times is data maintenance. Having a data catalog with enough visibility to identify parts of data that need to be maintained and worked on is vital for managing data.
