Thatโs a great question. Unity Catalog have changed the entire data governance framework and I would do the following things to make UC projects successful based on my past experience of implementing Unity Catalog.
1. Design the metastore hierarchy early on
- Initially, we created catalogs and schemas ad-hoc as teams onboarded.
- Iโd establish a clear naming convention and ownership model before rollout โ for example:
- Catalogs aligned with business domains (e.g., sales, finance, marketing)
- Schemas mapped to data zones or data products.
This prevents rework and ensures consistent data lineage and access policies.
2. Implement access control as code from day one
- Early setups often involved manual grants using the Databricks UI or SQL commands.
- Iโd now automate permission management using Terraform or Databricks APIs, SDK, DAB etc. treating Unity Catalog permissions as version-controlled code.
- This improves auditability and simplifies onboarding of new datasets.
3. Adopt a data ownership and stewardship model upfront
- Initially, central data teams managed all permissions, which quickly became a bottleneck.
- Iโd define data owners and stewards per catalog or schema right from the start and delegate privileges accordingly through groups.Like make Business Owners manage the group permissions
4. Integrate Unity Catalog with external identity and policy systems early
- Integration with Azure AD SCIM for group-based access.
5. Plan for cross-workspace and cross-region access
- Unity Catalog enables sharing across workspaces, but initial setups often ignored multi-region or DR needs.
- Iโd now design catalogs with data residency and cross-region replication in mind.
6. Involve stakeholders early
- Instead of just IT-led design, Iโd include data producers, consumers, and compliance teams during catalog structuring to ensure business relevance and smooth adoption.
