The Enterprise Data Catalog: Improve Data Discovery, Ensure Data Governance, and Enable Innovation

With the very timely arrival of Ole Olesen-Bagneux's "The Enterprise Data Catalog", I got some time to work through it. FWIW this was really helpful in framing some Data Management challenges I've been working on, particularly around "Active" Metadata, and the interlocking Data, Source, Asset, and Term lifecycles. (Also, for my sins, my first introduction to DIKAR, which is also very pertinent...) Now I just need to work out how to efficiently send my annotated version over to my colleague 🤣

Making information searchable and findable is not new. We have been doing it for centuries and have sophisticated programs in Library and Information sciences dedicated to supporting this endeavor. Yet many data catalogs and data cataloging programs fail by not leveraging these tried and true best practices. Ole's book provides an expert's level view of what it takes and how to approach building a data catalog using those practices. If you are just starting to build your data catlaog or have struggled with getting users engaged, add this book to your reading list.

Whether you are considering incorporating a Data Catalog into your company or want to make the most of your existing one, I strongly recommend reading this book. I love the fact that the book is tech-agnostic and helps us ask ourselves the right questions about what we should expect from a Data Catalog, instead of blindly using one. Data Cataloging, at its core, is primarily about search: "How you organize your data defines how you can search it." Seeing a Data Catalog as a search engine helped me stop seeing it only as one more tool in the "Modern Data Stack" landscape, and start seeing it as a way to enable everyone to search all data in the company. Allowing data discovery is the start to every impactful data initiative at scale in any company. Ole’s book helped me realize that.

Ole's book is about how to organize data to make it searchable. But what makes the book so exciting for me is the reference to 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. The more decentralized organizations become in terms of data management, the more important it is to make data discoverable for everyone. In the second part of the book, Ole discusses the success factors for a solid implementation and how data catalogs can improve the entire data lifecycle management. His vision is that the data catalog should be a kind of social network. The data catalog will only be a success story if stakeholders adopt it as a collaborative tool in their daily processes. This is why so many data catalog projects have failed in the past. They lacked adoption after implementation. In the third and final part of his book, Ole discusses his future vision of data catalogs as "The Company Search Engine". My personal assumption is that this vision has already been realized in his professional environment. But that's another story. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 and the impact of 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. It is full of valuable insights! It's like a good movie. You can't watch it enough and you'll always discover something new.

This book provides a comprehensive and insightful look at enterprise data catalogs, making a compelling case for why organizations should strongly consider implementing one. Some key strengths and takeaways: Technical Depth: The author goes into significant technical detail on how data catalogs work, covering topics like metadata management, search capabilities, data lineage, knowledge graphs, and more. This gives readers a solid understanding of the underlying technologies and capabilities. Practical Focus: Despite the technical depth, the book maintains a very practical, applied focus. It provides concrete guidance on how to organize data in catalogs, implement search functionality, engage stakeholders, and derive business value. The numerous examples and scenarios make the concepts tangible. Search Emphasis: A key theme is positioning the data catalog as a "company search engine". The author makes a compelling argument for why powerful, Google-like search across enterprise data assets is transformative. The technical details on information retrieval query languages and search mechanics are particularly insightful. Data Governance Angle: The book articulates well how data catalogs can be a game-changer for data governance, compliance, and lifecycle management. The sections on applied search for regulatory compliance are especially valuable. Future Vision: The final chapters paint an ambitious vision of data catalogs evolving into comprehensive "company search engines" and knowledge management platforms. While forward-looking, it's grounded in current technology trends. Vendor-Agnostic: While discussing general capabilities to look for, the book avoids promoting specific vendors. This allows it to focus on core concepts applicable across implementations. Multidisciplinary Perspective: The author draws on library science, information retrieval, and other fields to provide a rich conceptual foundation beyond just data management. For organizations considering a data catalog, this book provides an excellent primer on the technology, use cases, and strategic potential. The emphasis on search and knowledge management is particularly compelling and differentiates it from other data catalog resources. Some constructive critiques: More coverage of integration with data quality and MDM tools would be valuable but I hear that author is writing another book covering this material and providing the depth this topic deserves. Overall, this is an authoritative and forward-thinking resource that should be required reading for data leaders evaluating enterprise data catalogs. It makes a strong case for the transformative potential of this technology when implemented thoughtfully.

Ole's "The Enterprise Data Catalog" provides a complete toolkit for making a success of Data Catalog implementation adoption. It is incredibly well written and full of explanatory notes, suggestions and notes of caution. Every chapter brims with quality content and actionable takeaways. Early on, the book provides the essentials for hitting the ground running (organizing data in domains, creating glossaries and maximising search results). The chapters dealing with the role of the data catalog as a democratisation tool for better data governance and analytics are equally useful. The author's vision for the future of data catalogs and the enterprise search engine (and what the latter implies) are also thought provoking. Modern Enterprise Data Catalogs, it seems, have a bright future ahead!

There are so many items that Ole Olesen-Bagneux presents that most people forget to consider when trying to implement a catalog. It is excellent how he explains and shows the importance of planning so that searching for data is effective and efficient. Ole paints a great visual picture of the vertical, horizontal, and relational organization of data assets to achieve better search results for company data. Domains are also so important and well emphasized in this book. I have seen the positive results of organizations that have planned out their domains and got a massive uplift in adopting the catalog. The key reason was that it helped them find the relevant data they sought. Many data management materials talk about the data life cycle, but this is the first book I have read that also shows the importance of the data asset life cycle. Ole shows the similarities and differences with a great perspective. Lastly, I won’t give any spoilers to the finish, but the last section is about the future of the data catalog and knowledge management. You won’t want to miss out on this!