Manage Unified Source Tags (Beta)

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Applies from Alation version 2025.1.3

Alation enables you to add source tags from Snowflake and Databricks Unity Catalog data sources to the Alation Catalog.

The unified source tags model is introduced starting from Alation version 2025.1.3 (enabled on request). It is designed for efficient source tag management across data sources. The unified source tags model aims at resolving tag name conflicts and eliminating duplicate tags from different data sources. It acts as an internal processing layer that consolidates and structures source tags from different databases into a unified and consistent system.

Source tags originate from external data sources and reflect data categorizations defined in their source systems. They differ from tag objects that users can create directly within the Alation catalog to enhance object discovery. Source tags are extracted during metadata extraction. Tag objects created within Alation have single Tags custom field, and all applied tags appear as values within that field, whereas a source tag is a separate custom field with its own values reflecting their source definitions.

Note

Prior to version 2025.1.3, Alation supported tag extraction only for Snowflake data sources. The Snowflake tags extraction had the following limitations:

  • Snowflake tags with the same name extracted from different schemas within a single data source or from different Snowflake data sources were added as duplicate custom fields.

  • Tag values disappeared when their source schema was removed from extraction, even if they were applied on other schemas.

  • Tag synchronization to Snowflake could fail due to duplicate tags with unclear origin.

The unified source tags model addresses most of the above limitations and is described in the following sections.

The unified source tags model isn’t enabled by default.

Starting version 2025.1.3, Alation supports extraction of Databricks Unity Catalog tags with the unified source tags model. Enable the unity source tags model to start extracting Databricks Unity Catalog tags. For information on how to enable the unity source tags model, see Enable Unified Source Tags Model.

Note

Databricks Unity Catalog tags extracted through this model are read-only in Alation. Therefore, you cannot edit tags or sync tag values from Alation to Databricks Unity Catalog.