Alation Glossary

Cloud migration refers to the process of moving digital assets like data, workloads, IT resources, or entire applications from an on-premises or legacy infrastructure to a cloud computing environment.

A data catalog is a centralized repository that stores metadata about an organization’s data assets. It helps users find, understand, and trust the data they need. Serving as an organized inventory, it captures details like data sources, formats, quality, lineage, and ownership.

Data classification is the practice of evaluating and organizing data into categories for more efficient retrieval, management, security, and more.

Data curation is the active and continuous management of data throughout its lifecycle.

Data governance ensures that data is accurate, secure, usable, and compliant. It provides a framework to manage data throughout its lifecycle, from creation to deletion. The goal is to create a trusted data foundation that supports decision-making, innovation, and competitive advantage.

Data quality is commonly defined as the measure of how well data meets expectations around accuracy, validity, completeness, consistency, and more.

Data search and discovery is the process of locating, identifying, and understanding data assets within an organization to facilitate informed decision-making.

A data steward oversees specific data assets within an organization, ensuring they are properly managed and utilized.

Metadata is information that describes other information or, more simply, data about data.