Alation is the Clear Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Machine Learning Data Catalogs, Q4 2020
By Mitesh Shah
Published on October 14, 2020
Alation has been named a leader in The Forrester Wave™: Machine Learning Data Catalogs. Alation received the highest scores possible in 26 criteria, more than any other data catalog provider evaluated, as well as the highest score in the strategy category. According to Forrester’s analysis, Alation is a strong choice for any organization trying to become insights-driven:
For organizations hitting the accelerator on being an insights-driven business, Alation has demonstrated to its customers that it’s the solid choice to intelligently harmonize data management, governance, and analytics.
Forrester VP, principal analyst, and primary author of the Forrester Wave: Machine Learning Data Catalogs
We believe the Forrester Wave is a resounding endorsement of the strength of Alation. The report assessed 10 data catalog vendors, researching, analyzing, and scoring them on 39 criteria. Alation received the highest score in the strategy category, and among the report’s leaders, Alation received the highest score in the current offering category. In all, Alation received the highest scores possible 26 of the 39 criteria, including collaboration, machine learning, security, product vision, delivery model, planned enhancements, market approach, performance, and revenue and customers. Alation also scored among the highest in the stewardship and governance criterion and tied for the highest score in the systems integration criterion.
Putting the Machine Learning in Machine Learning Data Catalog
In the machine learning criterion, one of the most heavily weighted criteria, Alation was the only vendor to secure a top score of 5. In Alation’s vendor profile, the report states:
Alation exploits machine learning at every opportunity to improve data management, governance, and consumption by analytic citizens. Every data catalog function is underpinned by intelligence that learns from data patterns, queries, and data professional search and interaction.
Machine learning is in Alation’s DNA. At the heart of the data catalog’s machine learning capabilities is the Behavioral Analysis Engine (BAE). The BAE improves every data intelligence use case: discovery is enhanced through natural language and popularity-driven relevancy rankings; stewardship is streamlined to emphasize the most active data sets, and governance is surfaced in-workflow through flags and suggestions.
Alation as a Platform for Data Intelligence
Along with rating the top data catalog offerings, the Forrester Wave points to the evolution of data catalogs as a central platform:
“Machine learning data catalogs (MLDCs) are more than a metadata management tool and marketplace. Standalone tools provide an enterprise hub across the ecosystem and solution- and platform-based catalog and metadata repositories. This hub combines a traditional data management business glossary, data stewardship, data preparation, and data marketplaces for a central platform to serve contextualized data.”
Forrester’s perspective on the data catalog as a platform aligns with Alation’s vision of the data catalog as a platform for data intelligence that supports a wide range of metadata-related use cases from data privacy and data stewardship to cloud migration. And with the recent release of Alation 2020.3, the user experience, analytics, and architecture have all been updated to make Alation an even better platform for data intelligence use cases and a better driver for data culture.
At the Top of Everyone’s List
Along with Forrester, the leading analyst firms all rank Alation as a market leader, including IDC, Constellation, Dresner Advisory Services, and Gartner. We believe the recognition of industry experts and analysts is continued validation for Alation’s innovative approach to making it easy to find, understand, and govern data.
- Putting the Machine Learning in Machine Learning Data Catalog
- Alation as a Platform for Data Intelligence
- At the Top of Everyone’s List
