AI, Information Mesh, and a New Age of Information Governance


100 new options. 20 new integrations. 2 huge product launches. A primary of its variety buyer convention. At Atlan, 2023 was the 12 months of constructing the longer term, with knowledge groups which might be envisioning it. And we couldn’t be extra excited to recap the 12 months, so let’s get began.

The First AI Copilot for Information Groups

Generative AI modified the expertise panorama in 2023 and each knowledge group began serious about the methods through which they may use AI to develop into extra productive.

Armed with learnings from after we had been a knowledge group, we seized the chance to make the lives of people of knowledge higher with Generative AI. In April 2023, we known as for a company-wide AI hackathon, sourcing concepts for the way forward for knowledge catalogs and knowledge governance. 

Two months later, in June 2023, we launched Atlan AI. By partnering with Microsoft and utilizing Azure OpenAI Service, Atlan was the primary to deliver AI superpowers to knowledge catalogs, main a wave of AI innovation for knowledge governance.

Make your group love documentation with Atlan AI

Within the outdated world, everybody uncared for documentation, blocking companies from trusting knowledge and making quicker, higher choices. Atlan AI brings an finish to the ache by auto-generating descriptions for a variety of knowledge belongings in Atlan. All knowledge producers need to do is overview, edit, and publish. 

After 6 months of testing with prospects underneath a closed preview, we’ve seen Atlan AI’s description solutions shine with an acceptance charge of 60%, giving people of knowledge extra time to work on business-critical tasks.

Clarify lineage transformations with Atlan AI

Lineage simplifies transformations by taking complexity away, displaying relationships between knowledge belongings. However when a knowledge analyst desires to dive deeper into how and why a knowledge asset was remodeled, the method of parsing by advanced SQL queries can take hours. However not anymore.

Atlan AI helps knowledge analysts and engineers perceive advanced lineage transformations by explaining what’s occurring in pure language. 

It’s not an exaggeration to say that knowledge catalogs and knowledge governance are altering perpetually, and for the higher, due to AI.

The Way forward for Information Governance 

In 2023, we hosted a primary of its variety group convention on fashionable knowledge governance — Re:Govern. Almost a thousand people of knowledge got here collectively to listen to visionary knowledge leaders, from firms like Nasdaq, Fox, Autodesk, Elastic, and HelloFresh, speak about their methods and playbooks for contemporary knowledge governance. 

If there was just one key takeaway from Re:Govern, it will be this: the way forward for knowledge governance will look very completely different from its previous. 

Amy Raygada (Swiss Market Group) and Mark Kidwell (Autodesk), shared their visionary approaches to constructing a knowledge mesh. Takashi Ueki (Elastic) make clear constructing automating belief by knowledge contracts. And Mihir Modi (FOX) defined his imaginative and prescient for knowledge merchandise and AI in knowledge governance. 

Information groups are forsaking the outdated world of handbook, siloed, one-size-fits-all approaches for a brand new world the place automation & AI, collaboration, and suppleness are key to success. 

That’s why, in 2023, we began innovating in the direction of a future the place knowledge mesh involves life, AI is embedded in our workflows, and handbook, conventional governance is automated. With that, Let’s recap 2023’s knowledge governance updates:

Convey your knowledge mesh to life with Atlan Mesh

Atlan Mesh is the primary ever native knowledge mesh expertise in a knowledge catalog. It’s an expertise that caters to knowledge shoppers and improves their understanding of the info property. Right here’s how:

  • Information merchandise as first-class residents: Treating knowledge as a product requires a local resolution, not workarounds. Information merchandise can now be created & curated natively in Atlan, inside a brand-new house for straightforward, context-rich discovery for enterprise customers.
  • Devoted areas for federated domains: With Atlan Mesh, every area will get its group’s personal workspace and touchdown web page to accommodate curated knowledge merchandise and documentation for knowledge shoppers.
  • Enterprise lineage: Historically, lineage has been a technical software for knowledge producers to grasp impression and discover root causes. Atlan Mesh introduces enterprise lineage for knowledge shoppers, who need to perceive the provenance, not the technical structure, behind how knowledge merchandise are created to information utilization choices. 
  • Information contracts: To help the creation of knowledge merchandise and proactively bridge the hole between knowledge producers and shoppers, we launched a brand new imaginative and prescient for knowledge contracts in Atlan.

We’ve already began rolling out Atlan Mesh to the primary few prospects, who will likely be part of the Atlan Mesh Advisory Council, and we’re excited to construct the way forward for federated, versatile knowledge governance collectively. 

Handle compliance in a single house with Tag Administration

As the trendy knowledge stack continues to evolve, knowledge groups want to make sure the correct folks have the correct entry to the correct knowledge. This entails figuring out delicate knowledge and defending it with the correct entry controls, whereas serving trusted knowledge to knowledge shoppers. 

To unravel this problem, we launched Tag Administration — a brand new method on your knowledge group to handle compliance and safety — and have become one of many first Snowflake knowledge governance companions to allow bi-directional tag sync between Snowflake and Atlan

Tag Administration lets you:

  • Create tags natively or import tags from instruments like Snowflake into Atlan
  • Classify knowledge belongings with tags at scale utilizing Atlan’s Playbooks
  • Sync tag updates in Atlan again to knowledge sources like Snowflake

With Atlan’s Tag Administration for Snowflake, our group could have one central house to handle tags. Bi-directional tag sync will empower our knowledge producers to tag belongings the place they work and allow our platform group to handle tags and permissions seamlessly.”

Roi Levoso Fernandez, Information Engineering Supervisor, Taxfix

Perceive impression and optimize prices with Reputation & Utilization metrics

As a knowledge chief, you’re all the time seeking to get probably the most out of your knowledge, whereas controlling prices. However you want visibility into who’s really utilizing what knowledge through which instruments. 

In 2023, we launched Reputation & Utilization for 4 connectors — Snowflake, Databricks, Energy BI, and Redshift — giving knowledge groups the power to:

  • Uncover probably the most or least used belongings by sorting by reputation
  • Perceive reputation in lineage with reputation indicators & pop-ups
  • See who’s utilizing knowledge with High Customers and Latest Customers
  • Optimize the info property with In style, Sluggish, and Costly queries

With the launch of Reputation and Utilization for Snowflake, Mistertemp, a frontrunner in recruitment and non permanent work primarily based in France, deprecated 50% of unused Snowflake tables and over 60% of their Looker belongings:

Every thing downstream modified. We had been in a position to see each current connection in Fivetran. We may see what was really used. We saved these, and for the whole lot else, we’d disconnect.”

David Milosevic, Head of Information & Analytics, Mistertemp

The Period of Energetic Metadata

Energetic metadata has all the time been core to Atlan’s platform, and in 2023, we noticed it changing into the middle of knowledge estates throughout industries and companies too.

This 12 months, we had 20 new knowledge leaders, from companies like Docker, Purple, and Datacamp,  be part of the Energetic Metadata Pioneers membership — a visionary group that’s pushing the boundaries of metadata ahead by making lively metadata a precedence. And to shut out the 12 months, in November 2023, G2 launched its first Energetic Metadata Grid Report, pushed by opinions from actual customers, with Atlan being the one chief within the class

With that, let’s recap 2023’s lively metadata developments:

Don’t go breaking my coronary heart dashboards with Metadata CI/CD

Influence evaluation is a tiring, time consuming, and disheartening course of for knowledge engineers. However with out it, one small change may break hundreds of dashboards. What if impression evaluation might be proactive and preventative, as an alternative of reactive and handbook? Say howdy to Metadata CI/CD.

With integrations for GitHub and GitLab, Metadata CI/CD robotically surfaces impacted belongings proper within the knowledge producer workflow. This implies knowledge engineers don’t need to manually verify impression and enterprise customers can belief their dashboards, which break much less usually. 

After its launch, Metadata CI/CD helped a knowledge group on Atlan understand that the request for a column title change may impression greater than 1,000 business-critical dashboards.

Atlan has been an ideal assist. We not need to depend on these paperwork, and we’re in a position to do impression assessments on the click on of a button.”

Nestor Jarquin, World Information & Analytics Lead, Aliaxis

Bringing metadata to everybody’s favourite software: spreadsheets

There’s one knowledge software that has stood the take a look at of time: Excel. 

In 2023, we launched and upgraded our integrations with Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets to allow new use instances:

  • Speed up documentation by enriching metadata at scale 

By importing knowledge belongings from Atlan into Excel or Sheets, now you can doc descriptions, certificates, homeowners, tags, and bulletins on your column belongings utilizing spreadsheet flexibility and sync the metadata updates to Atlan with a single click on.

  • Construct belief and maintain finish customers knowledgeable with impression evaluation

Now you can analyze impression quicker by importing impression evaluation right into a spreadsheet and add bulletins to maintain finish customers knowledgeable.

Convey enterprise and knowledge collectively in Microsoft Groups 

To create true company-wide adoption, you’ll want to meet your customers the place they work. That’s why Atlan now integrates with Microsoft Groups. Now you can speed up your knowledge and enterprise tasks with higher, cross-functional collaboration round knowledge. 

Atlan’s integration with Microsoft Groups lets you:

  1. Share knowledge belongings & ask knowledge questions in a Microsoft Groups channels with out leaving Atlan
  2. Hyperlink essential, context-rich Microsoft Groups threads to Atlan belongings
  3. Get notifications & alerts in chosen Microsoft Groups channels

Push the boundaries of metadata with Webhooks and new Python and Java SDKs

Making ready your knowledge property and group for mission-critical knowledge tasks, like AI fashions, wants a platform method to metadata. From event-driven metadata use instances like alerting to derived metadata use instances like Information as a Product scoring, knowledge groups are making the way forward for metadata come to life with this 12 months’s extensibility enhancements. 

In 2023, we launched the Java and Python SDKs, enabling knowledge groups to construct customized lively metadata use instances like:

  • Governance reporting: Measure the success your governance initiatives by automating metadata enrichment studies.
  • Customized connections: Join Atlan to your enterprise homegrown techniques to allow end-to-end discovery and lineage.
  • Derived metadata: Create customized metadata corresponding to a “Metadata Completeness Rating” or “Information as a Product Rating” by analyzing metadata enrichment.
  • Metadata migration: Mechanically migrate all of your current metadata out of your legacy knowledge catalog to Atlan.

Together with Python and Java SDKs, we additionally launched help for Webhooks in 2023 — opening up the world of event-driven metadata use instances. 

Webhooks can help you monitor occasions taking place in Atlan, obtain notifications to a URL of your selection, and take motion instantly. For instance, you may create a webhook to ship notifications to your electronic mail deal with or collaboration app, like Slack or Microsoft Groups, when a time period is up to date or an asset is tagged. 

The chances are really infinite and we’re excited to see the way forward for lively metadata, constructed not by Atlan, however by knowledge groups around the globe.

A Collaboration to Ship Trusted Information 

With each software within the fashionable knowledge stack changing into more and more siloed, the people of knowledge have gotten siloed as properly. 

Information shoppers, who reside in BI instruments, don’t have visibility into the upstream pipeline world of knowledge producers. So when issues go mistaken, they’re usually the final to know. And knowledge producers don’t understand how their code adjustments are breaking downstream dashboards. 

This 12 months, we launched native, out-of-the-box connectors for 18 new instruments, overlaying areas like Information High quality, Information Observability, Information Orchestration, and Enterprise Intelligence, to deliver the world of knowledge producers and shoppers nearer collectively. Let’s recap 2023’s key integrations.

All-New Partnerships with Information High quality Instruments

Almost 75% of the time, when issues go mistaken, enterprise stakeholders are the primary to establish knowledge points. It doesn’t need to be this manner. Information high quality is a basic sign into knowledge belief, but it surely wants to fulfill enterprise customers the place they work, together with the correct metadata context. 

That’s why, in 2023, we launched two new out-of-the-box integrations with leaders within the Information High quality and Observability market: Monte Carlo and Soda. 

Monte Carlo x Atlan

With Monte Carlo and Atlan, companies can acquire an up-to-date understanding of their knowledge well being, construct belief in knowledge, and help progressive new methods to method distributed knowledge infrastructure. The native Monte Carlo integration provides you the power to:

  • Uncover Monte Carlo incidents and screens in Atlan with Monte Carlo-specific filters.
  • Democratize Monte Carlo’s knowledge high quality indicators wherever enterprise customers work with Atlan’s Chrome extension.
  • Speed up root trigger and impression evaluation by Monte Carlo incidents being surfaced in Atlan’s column-level lineage.

With Monte Carlo and Atlan, we will catch knowledge incidents early on, and supply everybody with clear visibility into the present standing of knowledge accuracy. This has been essential for the chief group to believe we will ship on our promise of dependable, reliable knowledge.

Michael Weiss, Senior Director of Product Administration (NAM, Information Entry and Analytics), NASDAQ

Soda x Atlan

Atlan and Soda’s native integration gives knowledge groups with an intuitive and complete platform to search out, belief, and use the correct knowledge. The native Soda integration provides you the power to: 

  • Uncover Soda knowledge high quality metrics and leads to Atlan. 
  • Inform knowledge customers of knowledge points earlier than they make choices by highlighting Soda’s verify leads to Atlan’s Chrome extension.
  • Speed up root trigger and impression evaluation by Soda checks being surfaced in Atlan’s column-level lineage.

BI Connectors for Enterprise Adoption 

To drive adoption of your knowledge catalog platform and knowledge governance initiatives, you’ll want to meet enterprise customers the place they work: in BI instruments. In 2023, we launched native, out-of-the-box connectors for six new BI instruments to assist knowledge groups drive company-wide adoption:

  • Sigma
  • Qlik Sense
  • Amazon Quicksight
  • MicroStrategy
  • Thoughtspot
  • Sisense

 These BI connectors allow companies to:

  • Construct a verified, single supply of fact for BI belongings by enabling discovery and documentation of BI belongings in Atlan.
  • Allow proactive impression evaluation of downstream dashboards and use instances by connecting BI belongings to upstream warehouse, ELT, and supply belongings with cross-system lineage.
  • Construct belief in knowledge by surfacing belief indicators from knowledge high quality, observability, and orchestration instruments. 

I’ve had at the very least two conversations the place questions on downstream impression would have taken allocation of loads of sources. Then really getting the work performed would have taken at the very least 4 to 6 weeks, however I managed to take a seat alongside one other architect and resolve that inside half-hour, saying ‘Should you’re altering the column title or including an additional column, that is what it’s going to interrupt or impression.”

Karthik Ramani, World Head of Information Structure, Dr. Martens

Bringing ELT & Orchestration Context to the Enterprise

Operational metadata can deliver highly effective context from pipeline processes for each enterprise customers and knowledge groups. In 2023, we invested in constructing native connectors to instruments that would assist reply this query: when a pipeline fails, how do you inform a enterprise consumer and assist a knowledge engineer discover the foundation trigger quicker? That’s why we constructed our first event-driven integration with Airflow and OpenLineage. 

Airflow x OpenLineage x Atlan

In 2023, Airflow, OpenLineage, and Atlan partnered to construct an ecosystem of belief by making real-time pipeline observability a actuality. Right here’s how:

  • Get a complete overview of your Airflow pipelines in Atlan by cataloging and documenting Airflow belongings, corresponding to DAGs and duties. 
  • Monitor and monitor your pipeline in a single house with real-time operational metadata like job run particulars and statuses. 

Perceive impression of your Airflow pipelines by visualizing how Airflow DAGs and duties hook up with your knowledge belongings with cross-system lineage.


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Eager about knowledge governance? Chat with our group about your governance initiatives and the way Atlan may help.

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