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Governance with Unity Catalog

Unity Catalog is the unified governance layer for both data and AI in Databricks. It provides a single place to control access, track lineage, discover assets, monitor quality, and govern AI across your organization, no matter where your data lives.

This chapter covers governing data and AI assets with Unity Catalog. Related security topics, such as authentication, networking, encryption, and privacy compliance, are covered in Security and compliance.

Start here​

The following resources help you understand Unity Catalog, set it up, and follow recommended practices.

Governance capabilities​

The following capabilities cover the major areas of governing data and AI assets with Unity Catalog.

    • Access control
    • Grant and manage fine-grained access to data and AI assets with privileges, attribute-based access control, and row filters and column masks.
    • Governed tags
    • Define and control the tags used to classify and organize securable objects.
    • Data discovery
    • Help users find the data and AI assets they need with Catalog Explorer, AI-generated comments, and certified and deprecated tags.
    • Data lineage
    • Capture and visualize how data flows through your organization, down to the column level.
    • Data classification
    • Automatically scan and tag sensitive data, such as PII, across tables in Unity Catalog.
    • Data quality monitoring
    • Detect anomalies across a catalog or schema and profile the statistical properties of individual tables.
    • Auditing
    • Track who accessed your data and what actions they took using system tables and audit logs.
    • Data sharing
    • Share data and AI assets securely across organizations and platforms with OpenSharing, Clean Rooms, and Databricks Marketplace.
    • AI governance
    • Extend Unity Catalog access control, lineage, and auditing to AI assets and AI traffic.
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