Catalogs

Enterprises are challenged with wide variety and a huge amount of data. A catalog helps in organizing and managing data assets. Finding and accessing data is easier with a catalog. Also, they bring a structure to data and help in having a common vocabulary.

The following is a brief description of the different types of catalogs that are supported in watsonx.data.

Iceberg

Iceberg catalog is used by Apache Iceberg, which is an open source table format for large-scale data lakes. Key features of the Iceberg catalog include:

  • Metadata management
  • ACID transactions
  • Schema evolution
  • Time travel
  • Partitioning and performance optimization
  • Integration with query engines

Apache Hive

Hive catalog manages metadata and other data assets within the Apache Hive framework, which is a data warehousing system. Key features of Hive catalog include:

  • Metadata management
  • Database organization
  • Integration with other data processing tools
  • Query optimization

Apache Hudi

Hudi (Hadoop Upserts Deletes and Incremental) catalog is the metadata management component of Apache Hudi, which is a data management framework for large-scale data lakes. Key features of Hudi include:

  • Metadata management
  • Upserts and deletes
  • Data versioning
  • Integration with query engines
  • Read and write optimization

Delta Lake

A Delta Lake catalog is the metadata management system that is used by Delta Lake, which is an open-source storage layer to enable ACID transactions for big data workloads on cloud storage and data lakes. Key features of the Delta Lake catalog include:

  • Metadata management
  • ACID transactions
  • Schema evolution and enforcement
  • Time travel
  • Performance optimization
  • Integration with data processing frameworks, such as Apache Spark
Note: While the primary usage for any catalog type is metadata management, you can choose the catalog based on your requirements and use cases.