When and how to use Unity Catalog

When to Use Unity Catalog

Data Governance: When you need to enforce data governance policies across multiple workspaces and cloud platforms.

Compliance: When you need to maintain compliance with data regulations by tracking data access and usage.

Collaboration: When multiple teams need to collaborate on data projects and require a unified view of data assets.

Data Discovery: When you need to enable data consumers to easily find and access the data they need.

How to Use Unity Catalog

Set Up Unity Catalog: Attach a Unity Catalog metastore to your Databricks workspace. This metastore will register metadata about your data and AI assets.

Organize Data Assets: Use catalogs, schemas, and tables to organize your data assets. Catalogs often mirror organizational units or software development lifecycle scopes.

Define Access Controls: Set up fine-grained access controls using Unity Catalog's security model, which is based on standard ANSI SQL.

Enable Data Lineage and Auditing: Configure Unity Catalog to capture lineage data and user-level audit logs.

Tag and Document Data Assets: Use Unity Catalog's tagging and documentation features to make data assets easily discoverable.

Integrate with Other Tools: Leverage Unity Catalog's interoperability to integrate with various data and AI platforms, ensuring seamless data management2.

By using Unity Catalog, you can centralize data governance, ensure compliance, and enable efficient collaboration across your data and AI projects