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

The Enterprise Data Catalog is a thoughtful, comprehensive read on data catalogs, metadata, data lineage and more, as a conceptual guide to implement. Ole Olesen-Bagneux has deep domain expertise on the subjects, and this book is a masterpiece.

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.

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!

Great, comprehensive read about data catalogs.

Ole delivers a practical and insightful explanation of the enterprise catalog's role in modern data management. Great emphasis is placed on pedagogically explaining, without glossing over the truth, what is required to build the foundation that enables data catalogs' abilities to deliver value and increase an organization's knowledge of its data. Ole has a unique approach as he combines his knowledge from library and information science with modern metadata management when he explains the importance and significance of the data discovery ability as a cornerstone in enabling data democratization.

This book was recommended to me by our enterprise data architect when we were starting with a new data catalog. I am really grateful that I read it before we started anything with our data catalog as it helped me plan the best approach for our business. I have read it through once but have read some chapters multiple times. I keep it on hand at all times and refer to relevant chapters before any major decision.The book is tool agnostic and provides sound guidance for implementing any data catalog or if you are looking to improve on the one you have. I highly recommend it.The author can also be found on LinkedIn and has very insightful posts there. I found his podcast, The Data Democracy, to be very good also.