Phase 15 — Governance, Catalog & Data Products

Architect objective: move from technically correct data to trusted, discoverable, governed, reusable data.

A Datasphere platform can ingest, model, transform, secure, and expose data successfully while still failing the business if nobody knows:

what a dataset means,
who owns it,
whether it is trustworthy,
which KPI definition it uses,
where it came from,
what will break if it changes,
who is allowed to consume it,
whether it is suitable for a particular business decision.

Governance closes that gap.

Phase map

Tutorial	Outcome
15.1 Governance Foundations	Understand governance as an operating system, not paperwork
15.2 Catalog & Metadata	Build the enterprise discovery mental model
15.3 Business Glossary & Classification	Establish shared business meaning
15.4 Lineage, Impact & Trust	Analyze provenance, dependencies, and change risk
15.5 Data Quality & Stewardship	Turn quality into measurable ownership
15.6 Data Products	Design reusable, consumer-oriented data products
15.7 Data Product Lifecycle & Access	Operate products from publication through retirement
15.8 Enterprise Governance Architecture	Design domains, roles, policies, and operating models
15.9 Hands-on Governance Labs	Practice realistic governance scenarios
15.10 Playbook & Architect Checklist	Consolidate production and interview readiness

What this phase deliberately separates

Governance, catalog, and data products are related but not interchangeable.

Governance defines accountability, policies, controls, and decision rights.

Catalog makes data and analytical assets discoverable and understandable.

Business glossary establishes shared business meaning.

Data quality measures whether data is fit for an agreed purpose.

Data products package governed data for reliable consumption.

A mature enterprise connects all five.

Governance, Catalog & Data Products architecture

Reference architecture

                         ENTERPRISE DATA GOVERNANCE
                                  |
              +-------------------+-------------------+
              |                   |                   |
         Policy Layer        Ownership Layer      Quality Layer
              |                   |                   |
      classification       domain / steward      rules / SLOs
      access policy        accountable owner     monitoring
      retention            escalation path       remediation
              |                   |                   |
              +-------------------+-------------------+
                                  |
                           SAP DATASPHERE
                                  |
       +--------------------------+--------------------------+
       |                          |                          |
     Catalog                Business Glossary          Lineage / Impact
       |                          |                          |
   assets / products          terms / definitions       source -> target
   metadata / tags            KPI meaning               dependency graph
       |                          |                          |
       +--------------------------+--------------------------+
                                  |
                           DATA PRODUCTS
                                  |
          +-----------------------+-----------------------+
          |                       |                       |
       Consumer A             Consumer B             Consumer C
       Analytics              Planning               Data Science

Architect principle

Do not ask only:

"Is this object technically available?"

Ask:

"Can a consumer discover it, understand it, trust it, access it correctly, use it consistently, and know who is accountable when it fails?"

SAP documentation baseline

This phase is aligned to current SAP Datasphere and SAP Business Data Cloud documentation. Product capabilities evolve, so always verify tenant-specific availability and current SAP documentation before designing a production operating model.

Prerequisites

You should already understand:

spaces and security boundaries,
data integration,
graphical and SQL modeling,
semantic models,
analytic consumption,
monitoring,
security and authorization.

Phase 15 builds the enterprise governance layer above those technical capabilities.

Phase map​

What this phase deliberately separates​

Reference architecture​

Architect principle​

SAP documentation baseline​

Prerequisites​