Six in 10 IT leaders say they cancel projects because they can’t find the data they need. And countless grassroots initiatives never get off the ground because project owners simply can’t understand the data or know where it is located. Data catalogs are an excellent solution to these problems.

The best data catalog tools are scalable, easy-to-use, and connect to a variety of different data sources. They also enable teams to create a shared understanding of metadata and the connections between all of your information assets. These features are important for data democratization and data enablement—key goals of modern data catalogs—and help people quickly find the data they need to do their jobs.

Data catalogs are also key for demonstrating compliance with government regulations. They make it fast and easy to find and access sensitive and protected data, as well as to show how that data was collected and used. They can even provide data lineage capabilities to speed up root-cause analysis in the event of a security breach or other problem.

As you select a data catalog, look for one that offers strong support for your existing information governance program and software (including business glossaries, quality rules, and workflows). And be sure to consider how well the solution can connect to your other data sources and tools, including your analytics platforms (like BI dashboards) and analytic apps (such as Spark, R, Python, SAS, and Tableau). For more on selecting and deploying the right data catalog, see our Solutions Review Buyer’s Guide for Metadata Management and Data Cataloging Tools.