Key Criteria For Evaluating Data Catalogsv1.0

1. Summary

Data catalogs have come of age. In the present technology environment, where data is fragmented, spread, and distributed everywhere; across corporate data centers and public clouds, from local hard drives to corporate servers, enterprise storage and cloud object stores, databases, data warehouses, and data lakes; enterprises have a huge task in front of them, to discover, inventory, coalesce, unify, understand, and analyze.

Without a data catalog, the fight is over before it even starts. With a data catalog, this seemingly insurmountable effort becomes feasible, winnable, manageable…even enjoyable. But that is only the case if you are armed, first, with a broad knowledge of data catalog technology and features on the one hand, and the vendors and their products on the other. Only then can you pick the best data catalog for your needs, understand the degree to which those needs will be met, and take measures to address and compensate for deficits where they will not.

The data catalog state-of-the-art is still quite fluid. New capabilities are emerging, as are new vendors. At the same time, standards are emerging and stabilizing, and some vendors have been acquired. The tectonic plates of the data catalog market are still shifting, and it can be difficult to assess offerings and make a purchasing decision. But with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) having now been in effect for a year and a half and the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) now in full force, such a decision cannot be put off.

The result? Pressure on you to summon certainty and take action, in a market that is both complex and still evolving. That is a tough mission, but this Gigaom Key Criteria report is designed to be your go-to resource in achieving it. We will explain key data catalog capabilities, including the commonplace ones and those that are more rarefied, as well as features and technologies on the horizon. We will also help you understand the vendor landscape, as well as strategic phenomena – in the data analytics and data management markets – that are changing it and may influence it to change further in the future.
Read the report. Understand the table stakes, key criteria, evaluation metrics, and near-term game-changing technologies. Read the vendor writeups. Become well-educated in the space. Then acquire and implement the right data catalog platform, while at the same time readying yourself to anticipate new developments and new platforms.