Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Get Started with Data Catalog

Get started with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Data Catalog by creating the user groups and access policies needed to create a data catalog.

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This tutorial is directed at administrator users because they are granted the required access permissions.

In this tutorial, you:

  1. Create a user group for data catalog admins. Optionally create user group(s) for other users, such as data catalog data engineers, data scientists, data stewards, and data officers.
  2. (Optional) Create a compartment for your data catalog objects.
  3. Create policies to give your data catalog admins and other user groups access to use data catalog resources.
  4. Create a data catalog.

For additional information, see Data Catalog Overview.

Before You Begin

To successfully perform this tutorial, you must have the following:

  • An Oracle Cloud Infrastructure account. See signing up for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
  • At least one user in your tenancy who wants to work with Data Catalog. This user must be created in the Identity service.

1. Create an Admin User Group

A new user has no permissions until you place the user in one or more groups and create at least one policy to give that group permission to either the tenancy or compartment.

To create a user group and add users to this group, perform the following steps:

  1. Open a supported browser and enter the Console URL (https://cloud.oracle.com).
    To log on to a specific region, add the region in the URL. For example, https://cloud.oracle.com/?region=us-ashburn-1. For information about the Data Catalog supported regions, see regions.
  2. Enter your cloud tenancy and click Continue.
  3. Sign in with your credentials.
  4. Open the navigation menu and click Identity & Security. Under Identity, click Groups.
  5. In the Groups page, click Create Group.
  6. In the Create Group panel, enter the following details:
    Field Description
    Name Enter a unique name for the group. The name must be unique across all groups in your tenancy. You cannot change the name later. The name must be 1–100 characters long and can include the following characters: lowercase letters a-z, uppercase letters A-Z, 0–9, and the period (.), dash (-), and underscore (_). Spaces are not allowed. For example, data-catalog-admins.
    Note

    Avoid entering confidential information.
    Description Enter a friendly description. For example, Group of data catalog admin users. You can change the description later.
    Show Advanced Options Click this link to view the advanced options. The available option is:
    • Tags: If you have permissions to create a resource, then you also have permissions to apply free-form tags to that resource. To apply a defined tag, you must have permissions to use the tag namespace. If you are not sure whether to apply tags, skip this option (you can apply tags later) or ask your administrator.
  7. Click Create.
    Note

    To add a user to the group, follow these steps:
    1. On the Groups page, click the group that you created.
    2. In the Group Details page, click Add User to Group.
    3. In the Add User to Group dialog box, select the user that you want to add, and then click Add.
You have successfully created a group for data catalog admin users and added users to this group.
Data Catalog is used by various data professionals, such as data engineers, data scientists, data stewards, and chief data officers. Each type of user requires the permissions to perform tasks. You can create different groups for each type of user (such as a group for all data catalog users) to manage these permissions effectively.

2. (Optional) Create a Compartment

Compartments help you organize and isolate your resources to make it easier to manage and secure access to them.

To create a compartment in your tenancy, perform the following steps:

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Identity & Security. Under Identity, click Compartments.
  2. In the Compartments page, click Create Compartment.
  3. In the Create Compartment panel that appears, enter the following details:
    Field Description
    Name Enter a name for your compartment. For example, data-catalog-work.
    Description Enter a description. For example, Compartment for data catalog work.
    Parent Compartment Select the parent compartment from the list.
    Note

    You can apply tags to your compartments to help you organize them according to your business needs.
  4. Click Create Compartment.
You have successfully created a compartment for your data catalog resources.

3. Create Policies

A policy specifies who can access which Oracle Cloud Infrastructure resources that your company has, and how.

Create Policies for Administrators

Data Catalog administrators need access to perform all data catalog related operations including configuring private networks.

To create policies for administrators, follow these steps:

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Identity & Security. Under Identity, click Policies.
  2. In the Policies page, click Create Policy.
  3. In the Create Policy panel, enter the following details:
    • Name: Enter a unique name for the policy. The name must be unique across all policies in your tenancy. You cannot change the name later. For example, data-catalog-admin-policies.
    • Description: Enter a description, such as Policies for data catalog admins.
    • Compartment: Select a compartment in which you want to create the policy.
    • Policy Builder: In this section, move the slider to Show manual editor, and enter the required policy rule.
      • To allow the admin users to perform all operations on all data catalog resources in a given compartment:
        allow group data-catalog-admins to manage data-catalog-family in compartment data-catalog-work

        See policy examples to create the policy statement for your access requirements.

  4. Click Create.
    Select the Create Another Policy check box to stay in the Create Policy page and do the following:
    1. In the manual editor, enter the following statement to allow the admin users to perform all networking-related operations in a given compartment:
      allow group data-catalog-admins to manage virtual-network-family in compartment data-catalog-work
    2. Click Create.
    3. Select Create Another Policy.
    4. In the manual editor, enter the following statement to allow the admin users to view Oracle Cloud Infrastructure users in the Console:
      allow group data-catalog-admins to inspect users in compartment data-catalog-work
    5. Click Create.
You have successfully created the required policies for the Data Catalog administrators.
Create Policies for Data Catalog Users

Data Catalog users need the appropriate access to perform their required operations in a data catalog.

To create a policy for data catalog users, follow these steps:

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Identity & Security. Under Identity, click Policies.
  2. In the Policies page, click Create Policy.
  3. In the Create Policy panel, enter the following details:
    • Name: Enter a unique name for the policy. The name must be unique across all policies in your tenancy. You cannot change the name later. For example, data-catalog-users-policies.
    • Description: Enter a description, such as Policies for data catalog users.
    • Compartment: Select a compartment in which you want to create the policy.
    • Policy Builder: In this section, move the slider to Show manual editor, and enter the required policy rule.
      • To allow the data catalog users to use all data catalog resources:
        allow group data-catalog-users to use data-catalog-family in compartment data-catalog-work

        See policy examples to create the policy statement for your access requirements.

  4. Click Create.
    Select the Create Another Policy check box to stay in the Create Policy page and do the following:
    1. In the manual editor, enter the following statement allow the data catalog users to view Oracle Cloud Infrastructure users in the Console:
      allow group data-catalog-users to inspect users in compartment data-catalog-work
    2. Click Create.
You have successfully created the required policies for the Data Catalog users.

4. Create a Data Catalog

When you create a data catalog, you get a single collaborative environment to manage technical, business, and operational metadata. You can collect, organize, find, access, understand, enrich, and activate this metadata.

To create a data catalog, perform the following steps:

  1. Open the navigation menu and click Analytics & AI. Under Data Lake, click Data Catalog.
  2. On the Data Catalog page, from the left navigation, click Data Catalogs.
  3. On the Data Catalogs page that appears, click Create Data Catalog.
  4. In the Create Data Catalog pane, do the following:
    • Create in Compartment: In the field, select the compartment where you want to create the data catalog instance.
    • Name: Enter a name for the data catalog instance. Avoid entering confidential information.
    • (Optional) In the section to add tags, enter one or more tags for your data catalog resource. Tags help organize and track all the resources within your tenancy.
  5. Click Create Data Catalog. The data catalog is created and listed in the Data Catalogs page.
You have successfully created a data catalog.