Great blog as always, David, reading my mind and bringing a lot of good food for thought.
It'd be great to hear your expanded thoughts on
"a centrally-accessible location, like a catalog or semantic layer"
Do you see catalogs and semantic layers as two separate things? Or two services of the same thing? Do you need both? Are they competing or collaborating? Could semantic layers just be generated out of a catalog? Is semantic layer just an "edge" feature of a "core" catalog? Is a semantic layer a "bespoke" view of a "universal" catalog? Can you have a semantic layer without a catalog, and if so, is it managed differently? Is "semantic steward" an emerging data role? I'm working through some ideas in this space, I think it's definitely an area of interest.
I think catalogs and semantic layers can be two separate things that use overlapping sets of metadata. I don't think they are competing as such, but as you can see with data.world making a DSL for querying data based on a knowledge graph (becoming a semantic layer), they can become platforms with multiple product offerings including both.
I think it's harder for a semantic layer to be generated out of a catalog than for a catalog to be generated out of a semantic layer. I think analytics engineers will be the "semantic steward" they already are really.
Great blog as always, David, reading my mind and bringing a lot of good food for thought.
It'd be great to hear your expanded thoughts on
"a centrally-accessible location, like a catalog or semantic layer"
Do you see catalogs and semantic layers as two separate things? Or two services of the same thing? Do you need both? Are they competing or collaborating? Could semantic layers just be generated out of a catalog? Is semantic layer just an "edge" feature of a "core" catalog? Is a semantic layer a "bespoke" view of a "universal" catalog? Can you have a semantic layer without a catalog, and if so, is it managed differently? Is "semantic steward" an emerging data role? I'm working through some ideas in this space, I think it's definitely an area of interest.
Thanks Kyle!
I think catalogs and semantic layers can be two separate things that use overlapping sets of metadata. I don't think they are competing as such, but as you can see with data.world making a DSL for querying data based on a knowledge graph (becoming a semantic layer), they can become platforms with multiple product offerings including both.
I think it's harder for a semantic layer to be generated out of a catalog than for a catalog to be generated out of a semantic layer. I think analytics engineers will be the "semantic steward" they already are really.