Data Catalog handles two types of metadata: technical metadata and business metadata.
Types of technical metadata
An example of technical metadata related to a data entry, such as a BigQuery table, can include the following attributes:
- Project information, such as name and ID
- Asset name and description
- Google Cloud resource labels
- Schema name and description for BigQuery tables and views
Types of business metadata
Business metadata for a data entry can be of the following types:
Tags applied to a data entry.
To know more about tags, see Tag and tag templates.
(Preview) Data stewards associated with a data entry. A data steward for a data entry can be contacted to request more information about the data entry. A data steward does not require a specific IAM role. You can add a user with a non- Google email account as a data steward for a data entry. A data steward cannot perform any project-related activity within the console, unless the user is provided with explicit IAM permissions.
(Preview) Rich text overview of a data entry that can include images, tables, links, and so on.
Search for business metadata
Business metadata is always linked to a technical metadata entry. Business metadata is searchable without the use of any syntax. The only exception to this simple search is tags, which requires the use of tag syntax.
The following is a list of important information for the business metadata search for a Data Catalog data entry:
- You can use simple search and use email addresses or names of data stewards, and text from the data entry overview descriptions to look for relevant Data Catalog data entries.
- Data Catalog does not currently support image search related to the rich text descriptions.
- If you delete a data entry and then recreate it within 32 days with the exact same identifier, then the overview and data steward of the data entry are restored.
Limits for business metadata
For information about the limits for business metadata, see Quotas and limits.