Data governance refers to managing and controlling an organization’s data assets. It describes data lifecycle management processes that help ensure data availability, usability, and integrity. Data governance tools help to define data policy standards and guidelines. These solutions help organizations maintain consistent policies, processes, and owners around their data assets, enabling them to monitor, manage, and control data movement effectively. Data governance software helps users establish guidelines, rules, and accountability measures to meet data quality standards. These platforms will often provide recommendations to increase efficiency and streamline processes.
Companies use data governance tools to meet regulatory standards, improving security and organization. Data governance aids in metadata management, data classification, and data lineage tracking, allowing users to understand the origin, context, and relationships of data elements. The software helps users locate relevant data sources and understand their content with data cataloging and discovery features. These processes will also increase employee efficiency by outlining and implementing data quality control guidelines. Some master data management (MDM) software and data quality software will have features to build data governance processes but are not dedicated to that individual purpose.
To qualify for inclusion in the Data Governance category, a product must:
- Aid in outlining and implementing governance strategies
- Facilitate data lifecycle management using data access permissions, authentication, and authorization
- Allow the enforcement of standards and compliance requirements
- Provide recommendations to improve governance processes
- Provide lineage capabilities to enable organizations to track the data's origin, transformation, and movement
