Business and Technical Metamodels in Microsoft Purview

Microsoft Purview contains both business-facing governance concepts and technical metadata structures.

Business model

Unified Catalog uses Governance Domains, Data Products, Glossary Terms, Critical Data Elements and OKRs to describe ownership, purpose, meaning and value.

Technical model

Data Map represents registered sources and the assets discovered from them, such as catalogs, schemas, tables, views, files, reports and columns depending on the connector.

Connecting the models

Data Products associate business use cases with one or more technical data assets. Glossary terms and other governance metadata provide business meaning around those assets, while lineage provides evidence of technical relationships and data movement.

Architects should preserve the distinction between logical business concepts and physical or platform-specific objects while ensuring the relationships between them are clear.