We are using it for metadata management.
Helps with metadata management, saves time, and allows us to do impact analysis on any changes
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We're working on metadata management. It is a data set of golden records. We need to do a scan of all different profiles and different data sources that we have in the company. Data Catalog together with the business catalog allowed us to provide a description of all the data sources in the data warehouse for our users. That's where the users go to find out where the data is.
What is most valuable?
When you combine it with data lineage, every time you need to make a change, it allows you to do impact analysis on any changes and then connect to the end-users or data stewards so that they can be aware that a change is coming. That's one of the main benefits we use it for.
Data Catalog is for people building their own BI solutions. People can go there to find out what the data is. It basically saves time for people from having to talk one-on-one to every team.
What needs improvement?
There are always ways to improve things. For example, we can use AI to be able to find out something. When we are typing something, if we don't know the exact term, Artificial Intelligence would be useful to find terms that are phonetically or syntactically similar. Instead of having to type in the exact name, they can provide those in the list. So, they can provide AI support for the search because when you have thousands and thousands of terms, it is hard to remember all the names.
There were some issues when drawing the data models. If you have more than 500 or 600 tables, it takes a long time to display those in the right position on the screen. That can also be improved. They need some caching and some parallel pipelines working on the backend in order to divide it into sections.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for about seven years.
How are customer service and support?
I did not use much tech support. I used it only at the beginning to set it up, and it was good.
How was the initial setup?
It depends on who is using it. It can be complex for somebody and not complex for another. It could be complex for beginners. If you already have experience looking at data models and know where the data should go, you have a path to look for to get to start, but if you're a newbie or starting a company, you don't know where things are, then it might take you longer to find things.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not very familiar with its pricing. I know it is not cheap, but it is also not super expensive. It depends on the company size. For a company making $1 million, it is very expensive. For a company making 10 million and above, it might be okay.
What other advice do I have?
You need to read as much as you can about the features. You should also read the user feedback from the forums. It will give you a guideline to see if the tool is appropriate for you or not.
I would rate it an eight out of ten because it still can be improved, but it is very good.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
