Blog
Data lineage and data observability, explained
Guides and practical playbooks for mapping data flow table-to-table, tracing columns to their source, monitoring freshness, catching schema changes, and seeing downstream impact before a change breaks a dashboard.
Acceldata vs Monte Carlo: Pricing and Data Observability Compared
Monte Carlo lists $50,000 a year for a Credit it never defines. Acceldata lists $5,000 and $100,000 and does state the meter. Both read live on 6 September 2026.
Read articleCyera Pricing and Sentra Pricing: What DSPM Vendors Actually Cost
Cyera lists $50,000 to $250,000 against stated 25TB, 100TB and 250TB ceilings. Sentra lists $50,000 to $500,000 in gigabytes with no quantity stated. Both read live.
Read articleVaronis Pricing: The Full Per-Connector Rate Card and What Varonis Costs Per Year
Varonis lists 17 per-connector unit prices on AWS Marketplace: $310 a year for Slack or Okta, $400 for M365, and $30,000 for Snowflake. The full rate card.
Read articleBigID vs Collibra vs Microsoft Purview: Published Pricing Compared
BigID lists $175,000 and Collibra $170,000 for 12 months on AWS Marketplace. Purview meters $0.0165 per asset per day. Real prices, read from primary sources.
Read articleInformatica Pricing: IPU Cost, AWS Marketplace List Prices and What IDMC Really Costs
Informatica publishes no prices, but its AWS Marketplace listing puts 120 IPU per month at $131,760 a year: exactly $91.50 per IPU, with no multi-year discount.
Read articleAtlan vs Alation: Pricing, Data Lineage and Which Data Catalog to Buy
Alation lists $60,000 a year on AWS Marketplace. Atlan publishes no price anywhere, even on its own listing. What that gap tells you before you buy.
Read articleAlation vs Collibra Pricing: Which Enterprise Data Catalog Costs Less
Collibra lists at $170,000 a year and Alation at $60,000 on AWS Marketplace, the only published prices either vendor has. What the gap really means.
Read articleMarquez Data Lineage: Self-Hosting Cost, Maintenance Status and Managed OpenLineage Alternatives
Marquez last shipped an artifact in March 2025 while OpenLineage published 27 releases. What self-hosting the reference backend really costs.
Read articlewatsonx.data Integration Pricing: IBM Resource Unit Cost, DataStage Plans and Databand
IBM publishes no price on its pricing page, but its public cloud catalog API returns $26.50 per Resource Unit, with a recommended 200 unit monthly minimum.
Read articleData Quality Dimensions and Metrics: How to Measure Data Quality with a Scorecard
The six dimensions with the SQL that computes each one, why accuracy is the one nobody measures, and a weighted scorecard that does not sit at 0.97 forever.
Read articleOpen Source Data Catalog Tools: What Is Maintained, Open Source Data Lineage and True Cost
Which open source data catalogs are actually maintained in 2026, checked against the GitHub API: Amundsen has zero commits to main in twelve months.
Read articleData Lineage Documentation: Best Practices and BCBS 239 Requirements
What lineage documentation must contain, what BCBS 239 actually requires (its 2013 text never says lineage), plus a row-per-hop template and a worked example.
Read articleOpenLineage: How the Open Standard Tracks Spark, dbt and Airflow Lineage
What OpenLineage is, how the Dataset, Job, Run and Facet model works, whether it does column-level lineage, which tools emit events, and its blind spot.
Read articleBigQuery Lineage Not Showing: View It in the Console and Fix It
How to open the Lineage tab on a BigQuery table, find the query that built it, and fix an empty graph. The 30-day retention limit, the roles, and the exact errors.
Read articleSnowflake Column-Level Lineage: How to Check a Column with GET_LINEAGE
Three ways to check column-level lineage in Snowflake: the GET_LINEAGE function, the Snowsight Lineage tab, and ACCESS_HISTORY in bulk. With SQL and the real limits.
Read articleData Contracts in dbt: What a Model Contract Actually Enforces
dbt model contracts fail a build when a model changes shape. But on Snowflake, BigQuery and Redshift only not_null is really enforced. The full matrix.
Read articleData Quality vs Data Integrity vs Data Verification
Data quality asks if data is fit for use. Data integrity asks if it survived intact. The precise difference, where each breaks, and what it changes about buying.
Read articleData Governance Framework: Components, Policy, Examples
A data governance framework defines who decides what about your data. The DGI and DAMA models compared, the components that matter, and how to build one.
Read articleMicrosoft Purview Pricing: $0.0165 per Governed Asset per Day and $15 to $240 per Processing Unit
Microsoft Purview governance costs $0.0165 per governed asset per day plus $15 to $240 per processing unit. Published rates, worked examples, no seat fee.
Read articleSnowflake Data Catalog: What Horizon Covers and What It Misses
Yes, Snowflake has a data catalog. Horizon Catalog covers discovery, tagging, classification and column-level lineage. What it includes, and where it stops.
Read articleData Observability vs Monitoring: The Difference and When You Need Each
Data monitoring checks rules you wrote; data observability learns each table's normal behavior and flags what you never thought to check. The real difference.
Read articleGreat Expectations vs dbt Tests: Which Data Quality Approach Fits
dbt tests are SQL assertions in your project; Great Expectations validates data anywhere, including before it lands. When to use each, and how to split them.
Read articleLooker Data Lineage: The LookML Graph, Knowledge Catalog, and Its Limits
How data lineage works in Looker, why the PDT graph and Knowledge Catalog integration are not column-level, and how to trace a LookML measure to its column.
Read articleCollibra Pricing: How Much Does Collibra Cost? $170,000 a Year at List in 2026
Collibra is quote-only. What procurement data says a deployment costs, the pricing model to ask about, and how it compares to metered Microsoft Purview rates.
Read articleSnowflake Data Quality Checks: DMFs, dbt Tests, and What Each One Misses
How to run data quality checks in Snowflake with data metric functions, the documented DMF limits, where dbt tests stop, and why lineage makes alerts useful.
Read articleAutomated Data Quality Monitoring: How It Works and Where Lineage Fits
How automated data quality monitoring flags anomalies without per-table rules, the three layers that make it work, and why it needs lineage to be actionable.
Read articlePower BI Lineage View: Data Lineage in Power BI, Impact Analysis and Column-Level Lineage
The Power BI lineage view maps dataflows and datasets but stops at the semantic model. What it misses, and how to trace a column downstream into reports.
Read articleTableau Data Lineage: Tableau Catalog, Field-Level Lineage, and Its Boundaries
How Tableau Catalog builds column-level data lineage, why it needs the Data Management add-on, where custom SQL breaks it, and how to trace the path upstream.
Read articleData Lineage for BI Tools: Power BI, Tableau, and Looker Compared
Built-in data lineage in Power BI, Tableau and Looker each stops at its own boundary. Why warehouse-native column lineage gives you one graph instead of three.
Read articleHow to Handle Schema Drift: Detect It, Rank It, and Fix It Before It Breaks Reports
A playbook for handling schema drift: detect structural changes from warehouse metadata, and rank drift by downstream impact so alerts do not get muted.
Read articleAirflow Data Lineage: OpenLineage, Marquez, and What They Do Not Capture
How to get data lineage out of Apache Airflow with the OpenLineage provider and Marquez, what column-level lineage you get, and the coverage gaps that remain.
Read articleHow to Visualize dbt Lineage: The DAG, Its Limits, and Column-Level Graphs
How to visualize dbt lineage, from the built-in docs DAG to column-level graphs, why the dbt DAG stops at your project boundary, and how to see the full path.
Read articleSchema Change Impact Analysis: How to See What Breaks Before You Deploy
How to find the blast radius of a schema change before it ships: map the dependents, separate technical from business impact, and coordinate the deploy.
Read articleData Lineage vs Data Catalog: What Is the Difference and Which Do You Need?
A data catalog tells you what data exists; data lineage tells you how it connects and what breaks. How they differ, and which one your team needs first.
Read articleRedshift Data Lineage: How to Build It From Query History
How to trace column-level lineage in Amazon Redshift from the system tables, why the seven-day log retention is the catch, and how to fill that gap.
Read articleSchema Drift Detection: Catch a Breaking Column Change Before It Ships
How to detect schema drift with metadata your warehouse already exposes, why naive snapshot-and-diff gets muted in a week, and how lineage fixes the alerts.
Read articledbt Dependency Graph: How to See It, Use It, and Where It Stops
How dbt builds its DAG from ref and source calls, the three ways to read it, the graph operators worth knowing, and what lives outside the graph entirely.
Read articleRoot Cause Analysis for Data Pipelines: A Four-Step Method
A repeatable method for tracing a wrong number back to its cause: pin the symptom, walk the lineage, check three failure classes, confirm with timestamps.
Read articleWhat Is Data Lineage? A Plain-English Guide for Data Teams
What data lineage is, why it matters, and how table and column-level lineage let you trace any number to its source and see what breaks before a change ships.
Read articleWhat Is Data Observability? The Five Pillars Explained
Data observability is how you know your data is fresh, complete, and correct. Learn the five pillars, how it differs from monitoring, and where lineage fits.
Read articleData Lineage Example: Tracing Revenue From Source to Dashboard
A concrete data lineage example: follow orders.revenue from a raw Stripe table through staging and models to the dashboards that depend on it, column by column.
Read articleWhat Is Data Downtime, and What Does It Cost You?
Data downtime is any period when your data is wrong, missing, or stale. Learn how it happens, how to measure it, and how to catch it before a person does.
Read articleHow to Build Data Lineage: Manual, dbt, and Automated Approaches
How to build data lineage three ways: by hand, from dbt, and automatically from query logs. The tradeoffs, the staleness problem, and what column-level adds.
Read articleData Observability vs Data Quality: What Is the Difference?
Data observability and data quality are related but not the same. Learn how monitoring, testing, and lineage fit together, and where each one catches problems.
Read articleBest Data Observability Tools in 2026: A Buyer's Guide
The best data observability tools compared on lineage depth, freshness and schema monitoring, impact analysis, pricing model, and time to value. How to choose.
Read articleBigQuery Data Lineage: Trace Columns Across Your Datasets
How BigQuery data lineage works, what INFORMATION_SCHEMA and audit logs give you, where they stop, and how to get automatic column-level lineage that stays current.
Read articleColumn-Level Lineage Explained: Why Table-Level Is Not Enough
Column-level lineage traces a single field through every transformation. Why table-level lineage misses breaks, and how column lineage answers what feeds a number.
Read articleSnowflake Data Lineage: A Practical Guide to Tracing Data Flow
How Snowflake data lineage works with ACCESS_HISTORY and QUERY_HISTORY, what you can build yourself, and how to get automatic column-level lineage.
Read articleDownstream Impact Analysis of Data Changes: Find Everything a Column Change Will Break
How to find every downstream dependency of a table before you change it: query history, column-level parsing, and the chain out to the dashboards in use.
Read articleUnity Catalog vs Purview: Pricing, Lineage and Which to Buy for Databricks
Unity Catalog has no price meter of its own; Purview bills $0.0165 per asset per day. Both rates read live from the Azure price API on 30 August 2026.
Read articleUnity Catalog Lineage: What Databricks Data Lineage Captures and What It Misses
Unity Catalog captures column-level lineage on Databricks. What it covers, the documented gaps around renames, path reads and the one-year window, and the fix.
Read articleData Observability Pricing: What It Costs and What Actually Drives the Quote
Most data observability vendors do not publish pricing. The three pricing models, the four levers that move your quote, and how to run the evaluation fast.
Read articlePut it into practice
Connect your warehouse read-only and see your lineage map in 15 minutes. Planned transparent pricing, no card to start.