Data plays a critical role in modern business, and organizations often collect mountains of it to achieve goals and support the bottom line. That data typically goes into a centralized repository or data catalog.

Data-driven companies of all sizes strive to make the most of their data catalogs, but common issues like silos put a wrench in the works. Data silos create unnecessary access barriers while reducing transparency and creating obstacles to cross-team collaboration.

Fortunately, there are ways to eliminate silos, allowing entire organizations to make the most of their data catalogs. One technique is to use data catalog connectors.

What are Catalog Connectors?

Simply put, a catalog connector is like a bridge between data sources and the centralized catalog. Typically, siloing occurs because separate departments or business units create standalone repositories for the data they're responsible for collecting and organizing. While divvying up the data seems productive, it only serves to separate.

Silos prevent other departments from accessing the data, hampering the discovery process.

Catalog connectors connect multiple data sources to the catalog, creating an easily accessible network for the entire organization.

The benefits of using connectors are plentiful. In addition to removing silos and paving the way for more intuitive data discovery, connectors improve efficiency across the board. The old barriers that prevented access and collaboration no longer exist. Connectors provide additional metadata context while creating a single source of truth for your entire catalog.

As a result, your assets are more searchable and easier for every department to utilize. This creates more opportunities for collaboration and improves productivity. It can also benefit organizations by enhancing data governance and accuracy.

With data catalog connectors, businesses can designate data stewards to improve reliability. The catalog becomes a single source of truth across the company, making inaccuracies a thing of the past.

Connectors also empower businesses to be more vigilant about governance policies and compliance regulations. Because the connectors create an easily accessible network, you don't have to worry about tracing data lineage across different silos while dealing with varying quality standards.

Author Resource:-

Emily Clarke writes about the best data catalog tools and data analysis softwares. You can find her thoughts at data catalog blog.