Data governance is one of the most popular and in-demand jobs among the data domain. Data governance leaders help to manage, govern, and monitor data to help organizations improve their business outcomes.

In this post, we’ll highlight the 10 most commonly used data governance tools at tech companies based on research with data governance leaders. We’ll also briefly dive into some trends we noticed during our conversations, further exploring how different data governance teams are thinking about their roles in the future. By the end of this post, we should’ve shed some light on the following questions:

What data access governance software are teams really using?

What tools can data governance teams not stop talking about?

Which data access governance tools tools tools are here to stay?

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What is a Data Governance tool?

A data governance tool is a software solution that manages and oversees an organization's data assets, ensuring their quality, security, and compliance with regulations. These tools organize and store data efficiently, facilitating easy discovery and access. They track data lineage to understand data's journey from source to use, helping to identify and correct issues. By enforcing compliance with internal policies and external regulations such as GDPR and CCPA, these tools automate checks to maintain adherence.

These tools also maintain data quality through cleansing and validation, ensuring accuracy and reliability. They implement access controls to keep sensitive data secure and prevent breaches. Seamlessly integrating with existing infrastructure, including cloud environments, they offer scalability to grow with data needs. Continuous monitoring and reporting provide insights for improving governance practices and informed decision-making.

Top Data Governance software tools

1. Secoda

Secoda is a universal data discovery and documentation tool that makes finding metadata, queries, charts and documentation as easy as a google search.

Today, data teams are collecting tons of data, but most employees don't know what data exists, how to use it, and what data to trust. This confusion happens because different components of company data get collected in fragmented tools. Teams use dbt and Snowflake for data cataloging, Google Sheets for events, Confluence for general knowledge, Slack to manage data requests, Mode for reports, Github, Looker, the list goes on and on.

Secoda lets teams manage their queries, charts, data catalog, data dictionary, and documentation in one place.

After teams switch to Secoda, data knowledge is centralized in one place. Instead of having to switch between Snowflake, dbt, Confluence Google Sheets, BI tool, and your query editor, Secoda keeps all your data knowledge in one place for everyone who needs it.

2. Alation

Alation is an enterprise data cataloging platform. Alation automatically builds a catalog of data documentation, covering all the data sources within your organization. Users can then collaborate and work on the same data together. Alation processes enterprise unstructured content by centralizing knowledge into one place using machine learning and manual analysis. Search can be done using keywords in plain English, and results can be filtered by relevance. Alation enables you to access relevant information (such as experts, lineage, keys, and indexes), and documentation on all tables across your organization’s data source. Clients include PepsiCo, Dow Chemical, Fox Networks Group, BMW, and others.

3. Immuta

Immuta provides a cloud-native data management platform designed to help organizations manage sensitive data. Their goal is to provide an easy-to-use toolset that enables users to easily create, share, and consume data while complying with regulations like HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, etc.

4. Collibra

Collibria is a company that builds software tools that connect the business and information technology departments. Their goal is to help companies create a data-driven culture. By doing this, they hope to speed up trusted business outcomes.

5. Avo

Avo is the self-serve analytics governance that saves teams like Patreon and Rappi hundreds of thousands of $ every year, by making every analytics release better, faster, and easier.

Avo is a better alternative to the "tracking plan spreadsheet", keeping your data quality high and your schema sync'd with all downstream tools. Import your tracking plan for an instant audit, then design more scalable data for every feature release, even before you're an expert. Avo is ongoing observability of actual tracking compared with tracking plan. One-time install the Avo Inspector SDK to see what's wrong with your tracking today so you can start making it better. Avo is the self-serve analytics governance, changing how PMs, devs and data scientists collaborate to plan, implement and verify their product analytics. What used to take Patreon 1-4 days for every feature release, now takes 30-60 minutes.

6. Precisely

The Precisly Data Integrity suite is built on proven technologies that 12,000 global companies rely on for their data driven initiatives. It includes 7 interoperable modules that bring you trusted data that is accurate and consistent across all your systems. It also gives you the ability to integrate your data with other sources to create a complete picture of your customers and prospects.

7. Atlan

Atlan provides an easy way to discover, organize, share and reuse data across your organization. Atlan helps you find, understand and trust all your data assets, whether they're structured, unstructured or semi-structured. You can use Atlan to search through millions of files, documents, images, videos, spreadsheets, databases and other types of data. And because Atlan is built on top of the cloud, you can easily scale your data catalog to meet growing demands.

8. OverEdge

Ovaledge is an enterprise data governance platform that helps companies manage their data across all its forms. It allows users to search through different types of data sources including databases, file systems, cloud services, and big data repositories. OvalEdge also offers a suite of analytics tools that help users analyze their data. These tools allow users to discover insights about their data and gain valuable knowledge about their customers.

9. Data.world

Data.World is an enterprise data catalog for the digital age. We help companies discover, govern, and analyze all their data using the power of the knowledge graphs. Our cloud-native platform enables data workers to become knowledge superheroes, making them smarter and more productive every day.

Key features of a Data Governance tool

1. Data Catalog: The tool should provide functionality for creating a centralized data catalog, allowing organizations to document and understand their data assets
2. Data Quality Management: It should offer capabilities for defining, monitoring, and improving data quality, covering aspects such as accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, and validity
3. Data Security: The tool must enforce stringent security protocols to protect data from unauthorized access, supporting data masking, anonymization, and encryption techniques
4. Data Lineage and Metadata Management: It should include features for automated data lineage, metadata management, and data mapping, allowing organizations to track the flow of data and maintain policy adherence.
5. Regulatory Compliance Support: The tool should incorporate frameworks and workflows to ensure organizations comply with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA
6. Collaboration and Workflow Management: It should facilitate collaborative discovery, reporting, and auditing activities, along with workflow management and process documentation to drive compliance and governance
7. Scalability and Integration: The tool should be scalable and able to integrate with existing data management and analytics solutions within the organization

These features are essential for ensuring the quality, security, availability, and usability of data across an organization, and for supporting data governance efforts in a complex and dynamic data environment.

What data access governance software are teams most excited about?

It’s easy to get excited about data governance software and the endless possibilities it brings for teams to manage and secure their data. However, with so many options available, it can feel like being a kid in a candy store—choosing the right solution can be overwhelming. Organizations are increasingly stringent about the technologies employees use, from software down to hardware choices, so it’s no surprise they’re equally concerned about how their data is accessed. The good news is that with the right data access governance software, teams can ensure their data is accessed safely and in line with company policies. Recently, we’ve seen strong momentum in the data discovery and cataloging space, led by innovators like Alation and Collibra, who continue to shape the landscape of data governance with their robust solutions.

What’s next in data access governance software?

With data access governance software, you have visibility into who has access to what data and where it is located. Data access governance helps organizations find where sensitive data might be stored and then decide whether to move it or modify permissions to restrict access. You need to know where data is – and who can see it – so you can understand the risk your organization faces in order to protect sensitive information.

Data Governance (DG) is a structured approach to managing data, focusing on policies and processes. Automating data governance allows companies to ensure that each step of the DG process is executed accurately and consistently.

Try Secoda for free

Secoda encompasses all of the above features in a single platform.

Tools that allow employees outside the data team to make confident decisions must continue to adapt to the needs of modern businesses and data privacy concerns. If you’re interested in talking about the future of the data stack and how we can help your team, you can create a free account here

Data governance is critical for ensuring the accuracy, security, and compliance of an organization's data. Secoda offers a range of features and tools that can help data teams improve their data governance practices in several ways:

1. Automated data lineage: Secoda's automated data lineage capabilities provide a complete view of data flows across your organization, allowing data teams to better understand data dependencies and ensure data accuracy. This can help teams to identify potential issues and mitigate risks related to data quality, compliance, and security.
2. Data cataloging: With Secoda's data cataloging features, data teams can easily track and manage data assets across the organization, including data sources, data models, and data transformations. This can help teams to ensure that data assets are being used appropriately and are compliant with relevant regulations.
3. Collaboration and documentation: Secoda provides a platform for data teams to collaborate and document their data governance policies, standards, and procedures. This can help to ensure that everyone on the team has a shared understanding of data governance practices and can contribute to the ongoing improvement of those practices.
4. Auditing and compliance: Secoda's auditing and compliance features help to ensure that data governance policies and procedures are being followed, and provide a clear audit trail for any changes or updates made to data assets. This can help teams to meet regulatory requirements and ensure that data is secure and compliant.
5. Data privacy and security: With Secoda's data privacy and security features, data teams can ensure that sensitive data is being handled appropriately, and that access to data is limited to authorized individuals. This can help teams to protect against data breaches and other security threats.

Overall, by using Secoda for data governance, data teams can improve their data quality, ensure compliance with regulations, and reduce the risk of data-related issues. The platform provides a range of features and tools that can help data teams to collaborate, document, and enforce data governance policies, making it a valuable tool for any organization that takes data governance seriously.

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