Data Catalog

Azure Data Catalog was Microsoft’s first centralized, hosted registry of enterprise data sources designed to simplify the sharing of approved data sources for business intelligence (BI) and application purposes. Azure Data Catalog was retired on May 15, 2024. Microsoft recommends Azure Data Catalog users migrate to Microsoft Purview‘s suite of data governance services. 

Service Overview 

Data Catalog supports a variety of products, including most Microsoft-hosted database services and third-party products. The service lacks many advanced features, such as data lineage and autodiscovery, found in competitor products like Collibra and Informatica.

The typical steps in using Data Catalog involve the following:

Registration. Approved users register data sources (schema and metadata) via a free downloadable registration tool, a Web portal, or programmatically via a RESTful API.

Annotation. A data source’s schema and metadata can be annotated by approved users with knowledge of them, which can improve the quality and relevance of the data source documentation for other users and relieve IT departments of a maintenance burden.