Databricks Unity Catalog is a data governance solution for assets such as files, tables or machine learning models in a lakehouse. It's a managed version of the open-source Unity Catalog that can be used to govern and query data kept in external stores or under Databricks management. In the past our teams have worked with a variety of data management solutions such as Hive metastore or Microsoft Purview. However, Unity Catalog's combined support for governance, metastore management and data discovery makes it attractive because it reduces the need to manage multiple tools. One complication our team discovered is the lack of automatic disaster recovery in the Databricks-managed Unity Catalog. They were able to configure their own backup and restore functionality but a Databricks-provided solution would have been more convenient. Note that even though these governance platforms usually implement a centralized solution to ensure consistency across workspaces and workloads, the responsibility to govern can still be federated by enabling individual teams to govern their own assets.
Databricks Unity Catalog is a data governance solution for assets such as files, tables or machine learning models in a lakehouse. Although you'll find several platforms in the enterprise data governance space, if you're already using other Databricks solutions, you should certainly assess Unity Catalog. We want to highlight that while these governance platforms usually implement a centralized solution for better consistency across workspaces and workloads, the responsibility to govern should be federated by enabling individual teams to govern their own assets.
