Data Map Sources, Collections and Technical Assets

Microsoft Purview Data Map provides the technical foundation beneath Unified Catalog.

Registered sources

A registered source tells Purview where a data platform or service exists and places that source within the Data Map hierarchy.

Collections

Collections organise sources and assets and are also used as access-control boundaries in Data Map. They can be arranged hierarchically to reflect how the technical estate should be managed.

Technical assets

Scanning a registered source creates or updates technical asset metadata such as databases, schemas, tables, files, views and columns depending on the connector.

The key relationship is: source registration establishes the connection point, collections provide organisation and access boundaries, and scans populate the technical metadata that governance, architecture and consumers rely on.