The Alation Data Intelligence Platform, shown in Alation Data Intelligence Platform, provides solutions for active metadata management, AI readiness and governance, data quality, data products, modernization, self-service analytics, privacy, risk, and compliance. For more information, see the Alation web page Alation Data Intelligence Platform. Alation's prebuilt broad and deep connectivity facilitates the extraction and integration of metadata from various data sources spread across on-premises and the cloud, into the Alation Data Catalog .
![A diagram of the Alation Data Intelligence Platform architecture.](/static/media/9198938f-8c47-5a0e-82d9-6db6a62cd3f7/DAM-6832bcfa-7409-4271-a8bf-d61216c4bd47/out/alation_g_alation_data_intelligence_platform_architecture=GUID-FA3306EE-F4CF-49A3-A84E-D6291DB606BD=1=en-us=Low.png)
Also, Alation Open Connector Framework (OCF) and open APIs enable organizations to extend the capabilities of Alation by integrating metadata from specialized data sources that are unsupported by prebuilt connectors. This capability is pivotal for leveraging data spread across silos. This solution enables a unified view for an organization's data ecosystem across its diverse application systems with varied data formats. As the volume of data grows, an efficient approach is crucial. The Alation Data Intelligence Platform employs machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate the curating of data, reducing the manual effort that is required to maintain an up-to-date catalog. This automation includes the classification of data identification of sensitive information, and suggestion of relevant datasets to users based on their search behavior and usage patterns.
With Alation Intelligent Search, this solution provides advanced search capabilities and AI-driven suggestions. Users can effortlessly locate and identify the most relevant and valuable data, ensuring that insights are readily available and not lost in the vast data ocean. This technology reduces the time and resources that are typically required to find necessary information. A current national retailer saves over 50,000 hours of search time. Alation's ALLIE AI streamlines curation with suggested stewards and descriptions to help organizations understand, get meaningful insights, and achieve faster outcomes from their data.
This solution also drives data democratization, enabling business users with domain knowledge but lacking data analytics expertise, to leverage data. Alation translates technical data terminology into understandable terms through intuitive search functionalities and natural language processing. This technology empowers all users to participate in data-driven decision-making, promoting a culture of shared intelligence across the organization.
In addition to enhancing data discovery and democratization, Alation Data Intelligence Platform fosters collaboration through a workspace where users can share queries, analyses, and insights. Social features like tagging, commenting, and user profiles promote an interactive environment where knowledge and best practices are easily exchanged. This collaborative environment breaks down knowledge barriers, encouraging the exchange of ideas and best practices, including data product owners to easily receive feedback to improve the products.
Building trust in data is essential for effective analytics and decision-making. This solution guides users on how to use trusted data in a compliant manner. Users gain the trust that they need in order to make important business decisions through applied governance policies, trust flags (endorsements), and current data health. In addition, technical and business end-to-end lineage provides a visual view for a deeper understanding, such as where this metric is sourced from. It provides users with the context that is needed in order to evaluate the relevance, accuracy, and reliability of their data.
Alation Open Data Quality Framework (ODQF) integrates with a wide range of data quality and observability tools, including leading solutions in the market and custom tools developed in-house. The open APIs support data quality metrics and validations to be incorporated into Alation in a seamless manner. Therefore, quality information surfaces at the point of data discovery and consumption. The high-quality data provides users with immediate visibility into data quality indicators that guide them in selecting the most reliable data for their analyses. Data quality thresholds can be set and, when exceeded, will set the trust flag to a nontrusted state. Thresholding prevents users from acting on bad data. Thresholding also boosts confidence in using good data in data-driven decisions and promotes a culture where data quality is a shared responsibility across the organization.
Data governance and compliance are paramount in today’s regulatory environment. Alation Active Data Governance provides robust governance tools that integrate with existing frameworks. Features of this solution include comprehensive policy management for data privacy, retention, quality, sharing, and more. Policies can be automatically applied to the appropriate tables and columns, tremendously increasing audit compliance. Active Data Governance facilitates the creation of regulations, policies, and standards to help organizations establish a data governance program.