External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
I have been using Alation Data Catalog for the past year now.
My main use case for Alation Data Catalog is updating data descriptions and making sure analysts have what they need to do their job.
We mainly use Snowflake and DBT to update descriptions and documentation that then gets automatically pulled into Alation Data Catalog for analysts to use.
I really appreciate the lineage functionality that Alation Data Catalog offers.
The lineage functionality helps me in my work by allowing analysts to know how downstream tables are being built and views, and it can also be connected to Power BI, which is impressive.
Alation Data Catalog has positively impacted my organization by allowing analysts to be onboarded much quicker and easier as a lot of their questions are answered within Alation Data Catalog. This lowers the burden of other analysts within the business having to teach and answer queries that would already be answered within Alation Data Catalog.
Some of the downsides about the lineage is that some of the code is quite difficult to read as the formatting is a bit ugly sometimes.
Alation Data Catalog can be improved with the lineage formatting, which is a little bit hard to read sometimes, and there are things like data flow objects where the naming conventions are a bit odd. I believe the catalog sets could be improved since currently, we have a lot of catalog sets just to apply stewards to different schemas, columns, and tables.
From my experience, Alation Data Catalog is stable.
Alation Data Catalog's scalability is really good since everything is cloud and everything gets pulled into the system via Snowflake and DBT automatically.
So far, customer support from Alation is good; we have been able to contact them, and they have been able to help us whenever we have had issues, as well as made some improvements from our feedback.
Positive
We did not previously use a different solution.
I was not personally involved in the setup of the pricing for Alation Data Catalog, but I do know that we were awarded or given a lot of free viewer licenses, which helped a lot.
I have not seen a return on investment, and I have not measured those things yet since we have not had it long enough; it still takes quite a bit of time to update and sell the product to the business.
I was not part of the discussions before choosing Alation Data Catalog, and I do not think there were other options; Alation was the only option.
My advice to others looking into using Alation Data Catalog is to sort their metadata out in Snowflake and their source system first before developing any connections to Alation.
My company does not have a business relationship with Alation other than being a customer.
I gave Alation Data Catalog a review rating of 9.
My main use case for Alation Data Catalog is cataloging various business domains, technical metadata, and business metadata for them.
I use Alation Data Catalog for cataloging business domains by cataloging different data sources, such as Snowflake, Power BI, Informatica, and DBT, so we integrate these sources with the business domains.
We use the Alation Data Catalog cloud version, ACS, and we utilize its lineage, its governance techniques, and as well as its cataloging of metadata objects.
The best features Alation Data Catalog offers include data discovery, data cataloging, data storage, technical and business metadata for your business domains, and lineage for data flow visibility.
The data lineage feature in Alation Data Catalog gives an idea of how the data is being transformed from different sources towards the end product, to the data product level, which helps my team day-to-day.
Data discovery in Alation Data Catalog allows me to access all the data within the different data sources with a single click. Alation Data Catalog has positively impacted my organization by improving the data marketplace section, the data utilization section, and the quality of the data.
There has been an increase in data usage and also time is being saved as specific outcomes related to those improvements.
I notice a couple of pain points with Alation Data Catalog: they can improve on the lineage perspective and improve their data sources integration.
They can improve the search capabilities for the data.
I have been using Alation Data Catalog for a year.
My advice for others looking into using Alation Data Catalog is to try to utilize the data discoverability, data profiling features, and improve the data quality features of Alation Data Catalog.
I think it is a good cataloging tool for governance activities. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.
My main use case for Alation Data Catalog is for data governance and for non-tech business users who especially want to understand some tech terms. For example, we have a huge data warehouse where every field in each database, in that particular table, in that particular schema, needs to be explained, and we try to streamline that technicality in a user-friendly non-technical way. That is where we use Alation Data Catalog to do the data governance and to provide information to non-technical business users.
Majorly, we do data governance and help business users, including non-tech business users, and this is the main use case for us.
My advice for others looking into using Alation Data Catalog is that it is a great tool, as it can help non-business users, has a robust business glossary, and aids in making faster, strategic decisions while improving productivity. I would highly advise others to use this tool as a data governance tool.
I appreciate the features in Alation Data Catalog, including data quality, faster data discovery, data stewardship, privacy choices, tracking data usage, collaboration, data governance, and open connected frameworks. Data stewardship is something I really use a lot, as it describes the activity associated with curating and governing data so that other users can find, understand, trust, or use it. A good data catalog should empower data leaders to identify data stewards based on the work already done, assign relevant assets to stewards, and clearly define responsibilities for them, fostering accountability and ensuring that the data is correctly handled throughout its lifecycle.
When it comes to data stewardship, Alation Data Catalog makes my job easier by providing a robust business glossary, which is another key tool for stewardship leadership to seek in a data catalog. It serves as a central repository that lays out a clear data-backed definition of terms, such as profit, with business metrics to ensure clear, consistent communication across departments. The stewardship capability I use majorly is a robust business glossary, which I wrote and managed.
Alation Data Catalog positively impacts my organization by improving data efficiency, data quality, and collaboration. My stakeholders can find relevant data assets quickly using a Google search without needing technical jargon, reducing the time spent searching for data. It has also increased productivity by streamlining data discovery and providing context, allowing analysts to spend more time on analysis instead of searching and preparing, so they can just start their analysis. Business users are empowered to access and understand data independently without relying on IT teams or developers for ad-hoc requests. For example, even my product owner does not usually go directly to the data engineer or developer with any doubt; she can search in Alation and understand the business glossary in a user-friendly manner. Additionally, when a new analyst or new member is onboarded, it helps them to understand things more quickly thanks to the centralized documentation in the catalog or business glossary.
Regarding improvements for Alation Data Catalog, I mention pain points, but I find it difficult to identify any. I do not have any pain points with Alation Data Catalog as of now; I could not think of anything that needs improvement.
I have used Alation Data Catalog for 1.5 years, and I closely work with the product owner who is the product owner of Pizza Hut Global, where we do some data governance and data steward work, which is where I use Alation Data Catalog.
In my experience, Alation Data Catalog is stable, as I have not encountered any downtime or reliability issues.
Alation Data Catalog handles growth and increased data volume well for my organization, as it has good scalability.
I have not needed to contact customer support for Alation Data Catalog, so I have not faced any issues with customer support, and everything is sorted for our team.
Positive
I did not previously use a different solution for data governance or cataloging before Alation Data Catalog.
I think we are just consumers of the service from Alation and not in a business relationship as a partner or reseller.
I can share that when I joined, Alation Data Catalog helped me to understand things and reduce my time, cutting it by 50 percent. Instead of going into Google or consulting a colleague, I can just go to Alation Data Catalog, search there, and understand everything by myself. Thus, it reduced my time and saved my colleagues' time, so I can say at least 50 percent of my time is saved.
I do not have any insight on the pricing, setup cost, or licensing, as those matters are handled by the finance team, so I cannot comment much on it.
I am not certain of other Alation Data Catalog solutions since my company was already using it when we started.
Alation Data Catalog is deployed in our organization on a cloud. We use both Azure and Google Cloud for Alation Data Catalog. Alation Data Catalog leads to faster decision making, as it helps in providing a single simplified view of data and clear definitions, allowing teams to find and use the right data more quickly, leading to better-informed and faster strategic decisions. I would say faster decision making is a key benefit. I would rate this review overall as a 10.
