The use case for our business is to create a single point inventory of all the technical and business assets and all the metadata onto a single catalog tool, which helps any user across the enterprise be able to search the metadata and perform impact analysis using lineage features to understand the flow of metadata from source to target to the consumption layer via reporting. For that, we utilized Alation Data Catalog.

The search feature really helps businesses.

Another strong feature is the automated data lineage, giving us a visual flow of how the metadata is flowing from system A to B to C and if any transformations are taking place. We can also create articles in Alation Data Catalog, which function as pages in SharePoint or Confluence that can be shared with users.

This includes comments and notes, an excellent glossary feature, and tagging capabilities, where Alation Data Catalog automatically suggests tags such as PII to classify metadata. These are the features that stood out for us.

The agenda of data governance is to have positive outcomes, and specifically speaking, we have saved our businesses about thirty to forty percent of analytical research and analysis time compared to previous metrics, highlighting the benefit of having a proper data governance tool in place.

Since trusted data is readily discoverable, users spend less time searching for it and avoid duplicate work, resulting in faster analytics. Moreover, when we establish good data lineage, compliance is easier to meet during audits since data quality issues are detected sooner, leading teams to resolve them faster and gain confidence in their reporting, both for internal and external purposes. These are a couple of the benefits and positive impacts Alation Data Catalog has had on us.

Additionally, another improvement point would be regarding connectors for scanning metadata. While Alation Data Catalog has many connectors, integrating with legacy or niche systems can be challenging, often requiring data engineers to create extensive API configurations or bridges. It would help if Alation Data Catalog could develop more out-of-the-box connectors and simpler integration workflows to ease the burdens on data engineers.

Alation Data Catalog also identifies recommended assets, allowing users to suggest or promote certain datasets, building trust within the business regarding the reliability of reports. Additionally, having an inbuilt SQL editor allows users to write, share, and review queries directly within the platform, streamlining analytics collaboration for new users exploring Alation Data Catalog for the first time.

The agenda of a data governance tool is to save a business's money and time. Specifically for Alation Data Catalog, in our business case, we save about thirty to forty percent less time when searching for data assets, meaning data analysts and stewards save that much time, which snowballs into significant ripple effects over weeks and months. This saves time and money, decreasing the chances of incurring millions of dollars in fines in regulated industries, enabling better data governance to mitigate those risks.

As for changes in day-to-day operations and morale, when we have a structured catalog in place and a business philosophy centered around discoverable metadata, we reduce searching time. Having clean, curated data assets helps analysts and data stewards focus more on higher-impact tasks rather than tedious cleaning and curation, boosting employee morale as they no longer have to repeat dull tasks. For example, onboarding times for new analysts have dropped from several months to just a few weeks, helping new hires feel less lost or overwhelmed. Trusted terms used in the business are readily available in the business glossary, complete with clear definitions, policies, and associated datasets, resulting in improved communication and fewer misunderstandings while aligning departments on definitions, thus enhancing company morale.

My advice for others looking into using Alation Data Catalog is to start by asking your business about their goals and needs. Every business and industry is unique, and it is crucial to ensure that any tool meets those specific needs. If you invest in something fancy and expensive but fail to meet the business's requirements, then that investment is wasted, so always focus on what the business requires. I would rate this product a seven out of ten overall.

We do the integration work for our multiple clients. Their problem is that many of their legacy systems lack a defined data or business glossary for their data attributes. First, they want to build a data catalog with a proper business glossary. Second, they aim to establish data lineage to track their data's transformations. Lastly, in some cases, they want to integrate data quality rules or business rules across the platform using Alation. These are the three main use cases they are looking to address.

The most valuable feature is cloud integration. It can automatically crawl and index various data sources on-prem or in the cloud. With 70 to 80 percent of enterprises operating in the cloud, the automatic crawling feature has proven to be one of the best.

When issues arise, two key concerns arise. First, how can we perform root cause analysis faster? Second, how can we optimize resource allocation, considering the associated costs? Every customer is focused on reducing the cost of computing and resources deployed in the cloud. These two aspects should be more stable. In a nutshell, data observability within Alation would be incredibly helpful for addressing these challenges.

I have been using Alation Data Catalog for ten years. We are using solution V 2024.3.

The initial setup is easy. If the business rules or governance policies are already drafted, implementing them for one system might take around six weeks.

We work with the data governance team to configure the necessary rules and set up crawlers and workflows.

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

We have a separate team of admins who take care of the installation. It's quite friendly.

The key aspect is ensuring that any policy changes in data governance are translated into rules within Alation. For instance, if a new attribute, such as a private one like SSN, is added to a database, and a policy mandates SSNs be masked for the first eight characters, Alation will enforce that rule uniformly. This ensures that all SSN information columns are properly masked and aligned with the governance policy.

Data discovery is best achieved through crawling. If we need to build lineage around it—tracking how data flows from one system to another—some of that is automated.

With Alation in place, from a business user's perspective, if they need to derive a calculated field, the system helps track where the data originates. The entire transformation is captured in the data lineage from the source to the actual KPI value. This often involves multiple systems where the same attribute might change. Lineage becomes especially important during regulatory audits, where you're asked to explain how a KPI was derived. If the lineage is built into Alation, retrieving and providing that information is accessible. Without it, you'd have to analyze how the KPI was calculated each time manually.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Alation Data Catalog provides a nice interface for connecting to the database, querying the data, and working on it.

Although the solution performs far better in terms of data cataloging, its data governance capabilities need improvement.

It would be helpful if the solution included data classification and an easier streamlining of the process of workflow creation.

I usually recommend Alation Data Catalog to cost-conscious small and medium companies.

The solution's technical support needs to be improved across the board, especially in lineage and other aspects. Sometimes, we find it difficult to identify the people with respective tool knowledge. It’s a bit difficult to identify resources for Alation.

Alation Data Catalog is another data catalog product gaining momentum in small and medium financial institutions. The solution's data discovery and enabling the data marketplace improves productivity.

The solution has an AI-based metadata curation model, but I'm unsure how effective it is. I know Alation Data Catalog has some AI functionalities that they're cataloging to leverage.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We try to federate Alation Data Catalog from different parts of the project onto one platform.

The solution's most valuable feature is the ALLIE AI feature. The features are generally the same across all data governance tools I've had experience with, including OpenMetadata, Alation, and Collibra.

We have had issues setting up the connectors and getting Alation's support team to resolve issues.

I have been using Alation Data Catalog for six months.

Alation Data Catalog provides good stability.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

I have previously worked with OpenMetadata and Collibra. From my reading and research knowledge, Collibra seems to be more stable on the connectors and security side. I still have to explore Collibra's federation part. Collibra is already FedRAMP certified, whereas Alation Data Catalog is in the process of attaining its FedRAMP certification.

We saw a return on investment with Alation Data Catalog on the federation side. We could bring everything to one place for the organization to know about the data assets, and the solution helped us integrate the knowledge.

I don't have all the details on the pricing side, but the solution was more expensive than originally expected.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten.

I haven't explored the solution's data lineage capabilities much. However, I have heard that there are some difficulties with getting the lineage to work, as it doesn't properly pull the information in. The solution provides automation, metadata descriptions, and tags. I would recommend the solution to other users because it's a stable product and an industry leader.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

We are using the solution to query databases.

The solution is used to query MySQL clients and store data and documentation.

It would be good if the tool could show the output from the records while querying.

I have been using Alation Data Catalog for one and a half years.

Sometimes, the solution's stability was low, but it was mostly fine.

I rate the solution’s stability a six out of ten.

We had no issues integrating the solution with Redshift. Alation Data Catalog is a good tool for analytics, but we need to go for some other tools for reporting. Alation Data Catalog is mostly a tool for querying. We need to integrate it with other third-party tools for reporting.

Redshift, AWS, and MySQL tools are better than Alation Data Catalog for querying purposes. MySQL and Databricks are visually appealing and faster tools than Alation Data Catalog.

Even though Alation Data Catalog is a free tool, we can check other available tools. If other tools perform well, we can choose them over Alation Data Catalog.

Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

We primarily use the product as a data catalog tool to search for data assets like tables or columns.

The platform's most valuable features are workflow automation, automated business metadata tagging, technical metadata tagging, and data integration with data quality tools or platforms.

The product's data governance features need improvement.

Our company has been using Alation Data Catalog for the last three years.

We encounter a few system outages. However, it might be because we have deployed in on-premises infrastructure. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

The product's data migration from on-premise to cloud infrastructure is not seamless. I rate the scalability a six out of ten.

The technical support team takes longer to respond than expected for simple issues.

I have used a different solution in my previous organization.

I was not involved in the initial setup process, but I think it was not that complicated. It took less than a week to complete.

Alation Data Catalog generates a return on investment for our organization.

The platform is moderately expensive compared to the other competitors in the market.

We are evaluating different vendors. In comparison, Alation Data Catalog is not performing that well and is moderately expensive.

Alation Data Catalog has improved discovery by addressing and searching particular data, including systems, tables, and columns. However, it could have been more helpful in the data governance aspect. They are about to introduce more features in that area. Its knowledge community is active; I rate it an eight.

I rate the overall product a seven out of ten.