Getting 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.

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

In this tutorial, you:

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.
(Optional) Create a compartment for your data catalog objects.
Create policies to give your data catalog admins and other user groups access to use data catalog resources.
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. Creating 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:

Open a supported browser and enter the Console URL.
```
https://console.<tenancy-region>.oraclecloud.com
```
The <tenancy-region> can be us-ashburn-1, us-phoenix-1, and so on. Use one of the Data Catalog supported regions.
Enter your cloud tenancy and click Continue.
Sign in with your credentials.
From the Console navigation menu, under Governance and Administration select Identity and then click Groups.
Enter a name for your user group. For example, data-catalog-admins.
Enter a description. For example, Group of data catalog admin users.
Click Create.
The new group is created. Click the group name.
Add the users you want in this group. These users must be created in Identity under Governance and Administration.
Click Add.

You have successfully created a group for data catalog admin users and added one or more users to this group.

(Optional) Creating More User Groups

Data Catalog is used by various data professionals, such as data engineers, data scientists, data stewards, and chief data officers. Each type of user should be given the permissions they require to do their tasks. You can create different groups for each type of user to manage these permissions effectively. In this tutorial, you create one group for all data catalog users.

To create a user group, perform the following steps:

From the Console navigation menu, under Governance and Administration select Identity and then click Groups.
Enter a name for your user group. For example, data-catalog-users.
Enter a description. For example, Group of data catalog users.
Click Create.
The new group is created. Click the group name.
Add the users you want in this group. These users must be created in Identity under Governance and Administration.
Click Add.

You have successfully created another user group for Data Catalog.

2. (Optional) Creating 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:

Click Compartments.
Click Create Compartment.
Enter a name for your compartment. For example, data-catalog-work.
Enter a description. For example, Compartment for data catalog work.
Click Create Compartment.

You have successfully created a compartment for your data catalog resources.

3. Creating Policies

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

Creating Policies for Administrators

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

To create a policy for administrators, perform the following steps:

Click Policies.
Click Create Policy.
Enter a name for the policy. For example, data-catalog-admin-policies.
Enter a description. For example, Policies for data catalog admins.
Enter the following statement 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.
Click + Add Statement.
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
```
Click + Add Statement.
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
```
Click Create.

You have successfully created the policy needed by data catalog admins.

Creating 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, perform the following steps:

Click Policies.
Click Create Policy.
Enter a name for the policy. For example, data-catalog-users-policies.
Enter a description. For example, Policies for data catalog users.
Enter the following statement 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 a policy statement for your access requirements.
Click + Add Statement.
Enter the following statement to 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
```
Click Create.

You have successfully created the policy needed by data catalog users.

4. Creating 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:

From the navigation menu, under Data and AI, click Data Catalog.
Click Create Data Catalog.
Select the compartment that you created previously for your data catalog work.
Enter a name for the data catalog instance.
(Optional) Enter one or more tags for your data catalog resource. Tags help organize and track all the resources within your tenancy.
Click Create Data Catalog. The data catalog is created within seconds and is listed in the Data Catalogs page.

You have successfully created a data catalog.

What's Next

Now, you can harvest data sources. Try one of the following tutorials:

After harvesting data sources, you can explore the harvested data entities and attributes, create a business glossary, and link terms and tags to your data objects.