Data governance is a field that continues to gain interest among industry professionals. Data governance is closely related to database management and focuses on creating systems and protocols for accessing information and data. Data science professionals use several SQL database tools to make data governance policies more transparent to data stewards and stakeholders.
What is Data Governance?
Data governance is a component of data management that focuses on data integrity within a database management system or enterprise tool. Data governance focuses on data stewardship and policymaking regarding how data scientists and stakeholders interact with data. Consequently, establishing a data governance model includes outlining data stewardship roles. Data governance professionals assign data stewards to specific responsibilities when managing and accessing data holdings.
So, ensuring good data governance within an organization requires systems and protocols around unifying and accessing data. Data governance protocol includes data access control and how an institution’s data should be modified, handled, and shared internally and externally. Data governance is essential for data scientists and is also relevant to information technologists, database managers, and network administrators.
Why Data Governance is Important for Data Scientists
Data governance standards are essential for data scientists who work with big data and data science teams. Proper data governance establishes each team member’s level of access and permissions to ensure data integrity and quality. Data governance policies are determined by the types of data that a particular company holds. So these policies are not one size fits all but must be tailored to a company's unique requirements and its database management system.
Data governance tools are also helpful when working within a data science team. Most data governance tools can be paired with a database management system to simplify protocol compliance. These tools use business glossaries and data catalogs to define and curate system data as well as unify the language used for data governance. Data governance tools also facilitate project collaboration by assigning team members responsibilities and empowering data stewards to access different facets of a database.
5 Data Governance Tools for SQL Databases
Data governance tools curate the data within a database management system and respond to changes in the database, data governance policies, or data stewardship.
1. Collibra
Collibra is a business intelligence platform built for data governance in enterprise systems. The Collibra platform uses automation, workflow management, and extensive database management to organize data lakes and warehouses, establish a data dictionary and data literacy, and simplify data stewardship and policy management. For example, Collibra saves a data governance model into the system, making it easier for a company’s data stewards to access the policies related to a particular dataset. And as a response to the shift toward cloud-based servers and big data systems, Collibra also includes protocols for data privacy and integrity when users retrieve data from the system.
2. Alation Data Catalog
Alation is a data intelligence platform that boasts customers from some of the largest companies in the world. Alation's data governance tools integrate automation and machine learning with aggregated knowledge to provide a model that offers continuous improvements and updates to a company's system. The platform also allows users to establish a data governance policy, assign data stewardship, curate data, and establish a data catalog. In addition, Alation includes an internal communication system so that data science and governance teams can easily share information.
3. IBM Infosphere Information Governance Catalog
IBM Infosphere Information Governance Catalog is a web-based tool that is part of IBM’s larger data science ecosystem. This tool interprets your data using a standardized language to be universally understood and pairs with IBM Watson, using artificial intelligence to analyze your curated data for advantageous use. IBM's governance catalog uses automation tools to parse existing company policies and determine the best data governance practices. The IBM platform tracks data lineage, so you always know where it came from, who is using it, and where it’s going. As a cloud-based system, IBM Infosphere Information Governance Catalog also ensures the security of data and information flows.
4. SAP Master Data Governance
SAP Master Data Governance is a business intelligence platform that acts as a control center for big-data management. SAP Master Data Governance provides compelling features that include facilitating collaboration and workflows across data science teams, evaluating data quality, and ensuring that retrieved data is ready for analysis. This platform also includes a cloud edition for businesses using cloud-based database management systems.
5. Talend Data Fabric
Talend Data Fabric is data governance software that promotes "healthy data." Healthy data is high-quality, readily available, and secure. Talend Data Fabric manages data, maintaining its integrity as it moves between devices and databases while accessed by multiple data stewards. The Talend TrustScore uses machine learning to measure data health and reliability. Talend also manages multisource data of varying types through applications and initiatives, such as data holdings in a data lake or another big database management system.
Want to learn more about SQL Databases?
Working with SQL databases requires knowledge of data governance tools, database management systems, and SQL programming language. Noble Desktop's data science courses provide such training. Noble’s SQL Bootcamp is perfect for beginner data scientists and covers the programming language fundamentals, like writing queries and organizing data. The SQL Server Bootcamp offers training for students and professionals who want to learn Microsoft SQL Server.