Amazon for information: Building a modern data catalog

A data catalog provides context to help data analysts, data scientists, and other data consumers (including those with little technical background) find a relevant dataset, determine if it can be trusted, understand what it means, and utilize it to make better products and better decisions. Aaron Kalb explores how enterprises build interfaces that make sourcing data as easy as shopping on Amazon.

Aaron gives an overview of data catalogs and explains how they relate to concepts like data dictionaries or data inventories. He also covers some of the fastest and most effective ways to build a data catalog, discussing the roles crowds, experts, and machines play.

Topics include:

• Descriptivism, consumability, traceability, and actionability
• The roles of data producers, owners, stewards, and curators
• How some of the enterprises with the world’s largest and most complex data environments are approaching the catalog challenge
• How to help your organization move past a “card catalog” of data to an “Amazon catalog,” rich with all the information needed to fuel efficient, accurate insight-generation