Purview Overview
Overview
Microsoft Purview is a comprehensive data governance and compliance solution that enables organizations to manage, govern, and secure their data estate. It provides a unified platform that brings together data discovery, classification, and governance capabilities, making it easier for organizations to understand and manage their data across a variety of sources, both on-premises and in the cloud.
Key Components and Features of Microsoft Purview
Data Discovery and Classification:
Microsoft Purview provides tools to automatically scan, classify, and catalog data from a wide range of sources. This includes structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data across databases, file systems, SaaS applications, and more.
It uses built-in data classifiers and allows custom classification rules, enabling organizations to tag sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), financial records, and intellectual property.
Classification rules can be applied automatically during data scanning, ensuring that all data is appropriately categorized for governance and security.
Data Catalog and Search:
Purview offers a unified data catalog where all data assets are indexed and made searchable. This catalog serves as a central repository for metadata, making it easy for users across the organization to find and access the data they need.
Users can search for data using business and technical terms, making it accessible for both data analysts and business stakeholders. Metadata includes information about data lineage, ownership, usage history, and sensitivity labels.
Data Lineage:
One of the standout features of Microsoft Purview is its ability to track data lineage. This allows organizations to understand how data flows through their systems, from ingestion to processing, storage, and consumption.
Data lineage provides visibility into the transformation and movement of data across various systems, which is critical for ensuring data quality, tracing data-related issues, and maintaining compliance with regulatory standards.
Visual representations of data lineage also make it easier to trace the origins of data, understand dependencies, and see how data is consumed across applications.
Data Governance and Policies:
Purview enables organizations to define and enforce data governance policies. This includes setting access controls, defining data retention policies, and implementing data masking to protect sensitive information.
It supports role-based access control (RBAC), allowing organizations to manage who can access, modify, and share specific data sets. This is essential for ensuring that sensitive data is only accessible to authorized users.
Organizations can also establish governance workflows for data access requests and approvals, making it easier to comply with regulatory requirements and internal governance policies.
Data Insights and Risk Management:
Microsoft Purview provides data insights and analytics to help organizations understand how their data is being used and accessed. This includes identifying anomalies in data usage patterns and highlighting potential security or compliance risks.
It integrates with Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) to apply sensitivity labels and encryption to data, ensuring that sensitive data is always protected, even when it is shared across different environments.
The risk management capabilities within Purview allow organizations to assess the compliance of their data estate against regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA, providing detailed reports and action plans for mitigating risks.
Integration with Other Microsoft Services:
Purview integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft services, including Azure Data Lake, Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft 365, Power BI, and Dynamics 365, enabling comprehensive data governance across the entire data ecosystem.
It also supports integration with third-party data sources, allowing organizations to govern data across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. This is particularly important for enterprises that rely on a diverse set of data platforms.
Through its integration with Azure Active Directory (AAD), Purview supports unified identity and access management across the data estate.
Collaboration and Data Sharing:
Purview promotes collaboration by allowing data stewards, data owners, and business users to collaborate on the management and usage of data. It provides capabilities for annotating data assets, sharing datasets with colleagues, and fostering a data-driven culture within the organization.
Data sharing can be securely managed, ensuring that sensitive or confidential data is only shared with authorized users and under appropriate governance policies.
Compliance with Regulations and Standards:
Microsoft Purview plays a crucial role in helping organizations meet compliance with various industry regulations and standards. By providing detailed data mapping, lineage tracking, and sensitivity labeling, it simplifies compliance with regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, and industry-specific guidelines.
It also integrates with compliance management tools within Microsoft 365 and Azure, providing a single pane of glass for managing both governance and regulatory compliance across the organization.
Use Cases for Microsoft Purview
Regulatory Compliance: Organizations in heavily regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and government can use Purview to ensure that they are in compliance with data protection and privacy regulations. The automatic data classification and risk management features help in identifying potential compliance gaps and addressing them proactively.
Data Democratization: Purview helps businesses democratize their data by making it easier for users across departments to discover and use data assets. By creating a centralized data catalog with appropriate governance controls, organizations can promote self-service analytics while maintaining oversight and control over sensitive data.
Data Lineage and Auditing: Data lineage tracking is essential for auditing and investigating data-related issues. Purview provides the tools to trace data flows across the organization, making it easier to identify where issues like data corruption or security breaches may have originated.
Unified Data Governance: In organizations with hybrid or multi-cloud environments, maintaining unified governance policies can be challenging. Purview addresses this by providing governance and policy enforcement across various platforms, whether on-premises or in the cloud.
Key Benefits of Microsoft Purview
Unified Data Management: Purview provides a single platform for managing data governance across all data sources, reducing the complexity of managing data in siloed systems.
Improved Data Discovery: With a robust data catalog and search capabilities, Purview makes it easier for teams to find and use data assets, accelerating decision-making and innovation.
Enhanced Data Security: By integrating with Microsoft Information Protection and supporting granular access controls, Purview ensures that sensitive data is protected, reducing the risk of data breaches.
Compliance Simplification: Built-in tools for data classification, risk assessment, and compliance reporting help organizations streamline their efforts to meet regulatory requirements.
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