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Business Examples

The business examples provide some of the scenarios in which you can use Enterprise Data Catalog. These business examples assume that Enterprise Data Catalog is installed and configured and the catalog is populated with metadata from all data sources.

Example 1

Susan works as a data analyst in a retail corporation that has outlets across the country. She is asked to analyze the product and sales distribution for the corporation and produce a report based on her findings. The input that Susan received is the sales distribution report for the retail corporation that exists in one of the regional data warehouses. Susan must search in thousands of databases maintained at different regional data warehouses for the retail corporation across the country.
The following table lists the tasks that Susan must complete and the steps that she must perform in Enterprise Data Catalog to accomplish the tasks:
Tasks
Steps Using Enterprise Data Catalog
Search for the sales distribution report.
Use the search feature provided by Enterprise Data Catalog to search for the report in all the databases. Susan can search based on the report name or perform a generic search using the wildcard search feature. Susan can further customize the search using the search filters.
Discover the source tables that contribute data to the report.
After finding the report, Susan can view the details of the report to identify the tables from where data is taken for the report. She can view the report details using the Asset Details tab.
Ensure the quality of source tables used in the report.
Susan can check and verify the profiling information displayed for the report in the Asset Details tab to ensure the quality of data.
Identify the related assets of the source tables in the report to gather the required assets that she needs to make the new report.
Susan can view the relationship between the assets using the Relationships tab. She can also find the flow of data using the Lineage and Impact tab. These steps help her identify the different assets that she must consider to build the new report.
Enrich assets used in the new report to tag these assets with additional information for ease of search.
Enriching the assets with the attributes makes search easier. For example, enriching the sales figures based on the regional location makes it easier to find the sales figures for a particular region. Susan designs a new custom attribute based on regions in the Catalog Administrator and names the attributes North, South, East, and West. She then uses the Edit Attributes feature in Enterprise Data Catalog to tag these region attributes to the corresponding sales figure assets used in the report. Susan can now search using any of the attributes to get a list of assets for the specific region.

Example 2

Alex, the data architect in a financial institution, must make sure that there are no security violations in the institution. Recently, the institution has had multiple instances where customers have reported fraudulent transactions on their credit cards. Alex must search in millions of databases to find the tables and reports where the credit card numbers exist. He must then report the violations and take the necessary steps to remove or mask credit card details in tables where the credit card details must not be stored.
The following table lists the tasks that Alex must complete and the steps that he must perform in Enterprise Data Catalog to accomplish the tasks:
Tasks
Steps Using Enterprise Data Catalog
Search all the databases for the credit card data domain.
Use the search feature provided by Enterprise Data Catalog to search for the report in all the databases. Alex can search based on the credit card asset name, the column name, or perform a generic search using the wildcard search. Alex can further customize the search using the search filters.
Identify the tables and reports where the credit card details exist.
After finding the assets that include the credit card details, Alex must shortlist the assets that violate the security policy of the institution by storing the credit card details. Alex finds the details of each asset by viewing the Asset Details tab. Alex also uses the Lineage and Impact tab to view the data flow for the asset. If the asset must not have the credit card details according to the policy of the institution, Alex marks that asset as a violation.
Annotate tables that violate the security policy with attributes.
Alex annotates the assets that violate the policy of the institution with a custom attribute named Non Compliance. Alex uses the Enterprise Data Catalog to create this custom attribute and uses Enterprise Data Catalog to annotate the violating assets with the custom attribute. The IT team can find the required assets from millions of assets and take the necessary corrective action.