This comprehensive guide examines the key capabilities required in enterprise-grade data governance software solutions. It profiles the top 10 platforms helping global 2000 companies govern complex data landscapes while addressing security, compliance and analytics needs.
Why You Should Care About Data Governance
Data is powering digital transformation and competitive advantage. As your organization undertakes analytic and cloud-first initiatives, governing exponentially growing data is crucial for:
- Risk Mitigation: Faulty data can severely impact operations, strategic decisions and revenues. Poor data hygiene also heightens vulnerabilities to cyber attacks causing millions in losses.
* $3.86M - Average cost of a data breach in 2022
* 27.5% - Of all data breaches caused by human error-
Customer Trust: Customers expect their personal data to be properly safeguarded as regulations like GDPR and CCPA evolve. Sound governance practices signal your commitment to transparency and due diligence.
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Productivity Gains: Employees can save significant time searching for reliable data to power reporting and analytics use cases. This enables them to focus on deriving insights rather than discovering datasets.
The right data governance software solution serves as the foundation for managing data as an enterprise asset. It delivers the required guardrails as you democratize data access, migrate workloads, or explore new revenue streams from data monetization.
This guide examines top software platforms that can address your organization‘s data governance needs at scale.
Key Capabilities in Data Governance Software
As data volumes and complexity rise exponentially, purpose-built solutions help automate and simplify governance while providing complete visibility.
Data governance software includes a mix of the following key capabilities:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Data Catalog | Inventory of available data assets and knowledge about columns, owners, meanings etc. |
| Metadata Management | Tools to capture technical, business and operational metadata adding context around data assets |
| Data Lineage | Ability to understand upstream sources and flow of data elements downstream to other systems |
| Data Quality | Assess, monitor and improve various metrics like completeness, validity, accuracy for data assets |
| Access Control & Security | Manage appropriate access to sensitive data via roles, encryption, masking and attribute based access policies |
| Compliance Workflow | Build automated rule-based actions to meet regulations around privacy, life cycles etc. |
| Collaboration | Drive engagement across users with discussions, workspaces to define standards and policies |
Let‘s examine the top software solutions that provide these data governance capabilities:
1. Collibra
Leading enterprise data intelligence solution for Global 2000
Collibra is a market leader focused on delivering a connected data experience for the Global 2000.
It serves as the system of engagement for data citizens to discover, understand, access and govern all enterprise data. Key user friendly capabilities:
- Flexible and high performance data catalog containing technical, business and operational metadata
- Configurable quality metrics leveraging 150+ validations spanning completeness, accuracy etc.
- Attribute-based fine-grained access control policies down to row and attribute levels
- Hundreds of pre-built connectors and APIs integrate with surrounding data tech stack
- Packaged apps for specific regulations like GDPR, CCPA and risk management
Companies like Verizon, Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas trust Collibra to govern their complex data landscape.
It offers both cloud-based and on-premises enterprise deployment options backed by strong customer support.
2. Alation
Leveraging machine learning and crowdsourcing for cooperative data governance
Recognized as a leader by Gartner, Alation provides an AI-powered data governance platform.
It combines both ML driven intelligence and crowdsourced human input to enable cooperative governance. Key features:
- Smart suggestions, alerts and data quality warnings powered by behavioral and usage analysis
- Fine-grained access control policies with row-level visibility restrictions
- 120+ enterprise data integrations – Snowflake, Databricks, Tableau and more
- Open platform to build custom checks and automation on catalog
Alation serves midsize to large enterprises like Munich Re, Virgin Australia across verticals including finance, retail and technology.
It delivers quick time-to-value as a SaaS-based solution demanding little IT involvement.
3. erwin Data Intelligence
End-to-end data governance automation leveraging a metadata lake
erwin DI helps discover, understand and govern data across hundreds of sources. Key aspects:
- Auto-generated system of record for technical metadata leveraging a metadata lake approach
- Centralized policy and rules manager enables lifecycle, security and privacy policy automation
- Packaged data literacy training helps gain user adoption across technical and business users
- Integration with surrounding data quality, security and storage tools
erwin DI counts large government agencies and global companies like Honda, Nestle, Deutsche Bank amongst its customers.
It offers both on-cloud and on-premises options to manage massive enterprise data estates.
4. Informatica Enterprise Data Catalog
AI and ML-powered intelligence for discovering enterprise data
Part of the industry leading Informatica Intelligent Data Platform, Enterprise Data Catalog (EDC) delivers metadata-driven intelligence. Key highlights:
- Automated crawler bots that use machine learning to catalog unknown data across 150+ sources
- Business friendly glossary, tagging and crowdsourcing features improve usability
- Packaged solutions for industry regulations like GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA
- Integrations with surrounding data integration and analytics tools
Informatica serves 80% of fortune 100 companies including leaders in healthcare, finance and retail sectors.
EDC is available across both single tenant cloud and on-prem deployment modes.
5. Atlan
Human-centric data governance tailored for agile product teams
Atlan brings a community focused design philosophy emphasizing simplicity, transparency and collaboration. Key aspects:
- Discussion forums, knoweldge graphs and workspaces foster tribal knowledge sharing
- Platform suggests policy recommendations by analyzing actual data access patterns
- 150+ pre-built integrations with data platforms like dbt, Looker, PowerBI and Tableau
- Workbench to easily view metrics and track data governance KPIs
Atlan is designed from ground up for product-led organizations rather than top-down data mandates. It serves high-growth companies like UrbanLadder, Rebel Foods and Lenskart.
Offered as a SaaS platform demanding minimal implementation time or support.
6. Global IDs
Unified data governance across hybrid and multi-cloud environments
Global IDs offers a single platform to govern both on-premise and SaaS data estates. Key highlights:
- Federated catalog stitched together from metadata of disparate systems
- Contextual access using dynamic variables like region, environment, resource attributes
- 200+ out of the box detectors profile data and highlight areas needing attention
- Pre-built dashboards quantify risk levels across 20+ indicators including redundancy and stale data
Global IDs serves complex hybrid data estates present in large banks, insurance firms and retailers.
It offers both self-hosted and SaaS deployment options backed by award-winning support staff.
7. Alex Solutions
Purpose-built data governance automation tailored for SAP landscapes
Alex Solutions exclusively focuses on enabling customers to effectively govern data within SAP ecosystems. Key highlights:
- Ready-to-use SAP data model containing hundreds of transaction codes, tables and fields
- Library of 1500+ rules and detectors for automated profiling, lifecycle and access control
- Companion packages for regulations like SOX, GDPR, BCBS239 spanning both SAP and non-SAP systems
- Optimized to run on large SAP business warehouse databases approaching 400TB sizes
Alex Solutions tailors it‘s offering specifically for SAP centric organizations in O&G, chemicals, utilities and manufacturing.
It gets pre-configured SAP landscapes operational in weeks rather than months.
8. Immuta
Real-time data governance guardrails protecting analytics
Immuta delivers a cloud-native data governance platform designed from the ground up to protect analytics. Key features:
- Automated discovery and classification of data assets spanning cloud data warehouses and lakes on AWS, Azure and GCP
- Granular row and column-level dynamic data masking policies to securely share live data
- Contextual access control evaluating user identity, environment and data sensitivity attributes
- Out-of-the-box dashboards providing usage analytics and auditing
Immuta enables faster, more collaborative analytics by removing security bottlenecks for companies like Orange and Sony Music.
It is offered as a SaaS platform easily integrated with surrounding cloud data stacks.
9. Privacera
Cloud-native data governance for securing analytics innovation
Privacera enables agile analytics on the cloud without sacrificing governance. Key capabilities:
- Automated scanning across AWS, Azure, GCP and Databricks to discover and classify sensitive data
- Fine-grained dynamic access policies based on data attributes, context variables and analytics use case
- Encryption, tokenization and dynamic data masking to protect PII data
- Monitoring data access patterns, query behaviors and user activities
Privacera serves customers like Orange Telecom and MediaMarktSaturn across technology, retail and telecom verticals.
It offers easy procurement and deployment as a SaaS-based solution.
10. Egnyte
Egnyte brings smart content intelligence to govern massive volumes of unstructured data. Key capabilities:
- Content analytics engine using computer vision and OCR to extract intelligence from data
- Flexible policy engine to classify content using hundreds of attributes
- Integration with productivity tools like Office 365 and Google Workspace
- Customizable dashboards providing visibility into governed content
Egnyte serves distributed enterprises dealing with exponential unstructured data growth across verticals like technology, life sciences and energy.
It is offered as a secure cloud service backed by award-winning support.
Evaluating Enterprise Data Governance Software
With data central to digital transformation initiatives, the need for robust data governance platforms has never been greater.
The top tier solutions profiled above enable even the largest global enterprises to effectively operationalize governance across varied technology landscapes.
As you evaluate options, focus on the following key considerations:
- Ease of use – Seek platforms allowing both technical and non-technical users to leverage system capabilities built for scale.
- Total cost – Look beyond license fees. Factor in implementation costs, vendor professional services charges and internal administration overheads.
- Scalability – Don‘t look just at current usage. Evaluate for projected data and user growth over next 3-5 years.
- Ecosystem integrations – Examine availability of connectors and APIs for integrating with your broader data platforms and analytics stacks.
- Deployment models – Ensure support for on-premises, cloud or hybrid options keeping your evolving landscape in mind.
- Vendor viability – Pick an established vendor with solid backing, large enterprises as customers and consistent technology innovation.
Rather than tackling this complex space alone, lean on guidance from above partners with proven expertise in successfully governing massive enterprise data for global corporations.
In Summary
With data serving as the fuel for digital transformation, having rigorous governance practices enabled by specialized software ceases to be optional. The solutions profiled above provide:
- Automation and intelligence at petabyte scale
- Integration across analytics stacks on cloud and on-premises
- Security, quality and controlled access fit for the regulated enterprise environment
- Platform foundation enabling innovation with trust
Equipping your organization with robust data governance capabilities today helps maximize long term value. Reach out for demos tailored to your specific use cases as the first step.
