Catalog Basics

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

The Alation data catalog combines technical metadata with business context in a collaborative environment.

This section introduces the basic concepts you need to navigate and interact with the catalog effectively.

To get the most out of Alation, it is important to understand the building blocks of the platform:

• Navigating the Catalog: Learn how to move through the catalog and find the information you need.

• Search and Discovery: Alation uses Intelligent Search that combines keyword matching with popularity data to help you find the most relevant data quickly.

• User Roles: Your Alation role (Viewer, Composer, or Catalog Admin) determines what you can see and which actions you can perform.

• Access, Roles, and Permissions: Learn how a combination of roles, permissions, and object-level access rules governs access and capabilities within the Alation catalog.

• Homepage Overview: Your starting point for discovering new data, viewing your Watched items, and accessing specialized areas of the catalog.

• Alation Versions: Learn how to find out the version of your Alation software.

• Catalog Pages: Every data asset—from a server to a single column—has a dedicated page containing its description, metadata, and logical metadata, or custom field values.