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Data Catalog & Governance

The Data Catalog is the central nervous system of Saddle Data. It provides a single source of truth for all schemas across your organization, moving beyond simple data replication to true data management and governance.

Key Features​

1. Centralized Schema Registry​

When you run Discovery on any connection, Saddle Data automatically snapshots the schema and saves it as a Data Asset in your catalog. These assets can then be reused across multiple flows, ensuring consistent naming and typing throughout your infrastructure.

2. Virtual Data Assets​

In addition to discovered schemas, you can create Virtual Assets manually. These are schemas not tied to a physical database connection, designed specifically for use with the LLM Validation Gateway. They act as "Contract Registries" for AI services.

3. Schema Time Machine​

Every time a schema change is detected during discovery, a sync run, or a manual update, Saddle Data creates a new Version.

  • Historical Audit: View exactly what a table looked like at any point in history.
  • AI Change Summaries: Our Vertex AI engine analyzes the differences between versions and provides a human-readable summary of what changed and why.

4. Global Impact Analysis​

Decoupling schemas from flows allows you to see the Blast Radius of a potential change.

  • In the Catalog, view an asset to see a list of every flow currently dependent on it.
  • Before you modify an upstream database, you can identify exactly which pipelines will be affected.

5. Policy Integration​

The Data Catalog works in tandem with the Data Governance platform.

  • Centralized Tagging: Apply global security tags (e.g., PII, PHI) directly to columns within the catalog.
  • Enforced Compliance: Once tagged, columns are subject to organization-wide policies that automatically inject mandatory transformations into your sync pipelines.

Workflow​

  1. Cataloging: Run discovery on your connections OR create a Virtual Asset manually.
  2. Tagging: Review your assets in the Data Catalog and apply security tags to sensitive columns.
  3. Integration: Copy the Asset ID for use in the LLM Validation Gateway or map the asset in the Flow Editor.
  4. Monitoring: Use the Version History to track how your data contracts evolve over time.

Plan Gating​

Plans

The Data Catalog is available on all plans. However, advanced features like AI Change Summaries and integration with Automated Policy Enforcement require an Enterprise or Enterprise+ subscription.