When the internet was taking off in the 1990s, finding a web page was an exercise in time and patience. Then search engines, such as Yahoo and Google, came along, and rapidly accessing information became infinitely easier after that.

Companies such as Alation Inc. are seeking to revolutionize cataloging enterprise data in much the same way.

“The big breakthrough for data catalogs was in becoming the Google of finding data in an organization,” said Stephanie McReynolds (pictured), senior vice president of marketing at Alation. “How can we use machine learning and artificial intelligence to find pattern usage, where people are clicking in terms of data assets, and surface those as data recommendations to any end user? This has become one of the hot technologies to include in the modern analytics stack.”

McReynolds spoke with Peter Burris (@plburris), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, in Palo Alto, California. They discussed functions within Alation’s data cataloging technology, a new analytics tool, and industry-wide adoption for its products and services. (* Disclosure below.)

Making governance actionable

The Alation Data Catalog compiles information from a wide range of enterprise sources, including repositories and business-intelligence tools. Recently, the company launched an analytics application designed to make data governance more actionable across intelligence tools, such as Tableau or enterprise operational systems.

“You’ll have a single source of reference for how this data needs to be governed, as well as a single source of reference for how this data is used in the organization,” McReynolds explained. “We’re trying to scale those precious data expert resources.”

Alation has found traction for its data cataloging services, having put together four straight years of triple revenue growth, according to McReynolds. Customers include eBay Inc., Boeing Corp., General Electric Co., and the U.S. Air Force.

“We have over 150 different organizations in production with the Data Catalog as part of their modern analytics stack, and many of those organizations are now moving into thousands of users,” McReynolds stated. “So, we’re starting to see all kinds of different industries and all sorts of different users.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: Alation Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Alation nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE