Founded in 2016, Synabi is a German technology and service provider with headquarters in Munich. The company currently has around 50 employees and operates mainly in the DACH region. Originally a spin-off of a consulting company, Synabi started out with customers in the banking sector before branching out into other industries. The company offers a data intelligence solution primarily, but also provides business and technical consulting, and educational services.
D-QUANTUM is a data catalog and data governance solution used by both IT and business users. It was initially developed as project solution and then brought to the next level as a highly customizable tool that grows with the customer’s needs. Today, customers can choose to use predefined use cases, specific out-of-the box solutions or to configure the solution to get an individualized catalog.
The tool is a web-based data catalog with a PostgreSQL database. It is available on premises, as a service or in hybrid scenarios. Synabi connects to a range of source systems from databases to analytical software to business applications. The basic connection to other systems is done via D-QUANTUM Connect, which supports asynchronous exchange of CSV, XML, JSON and JDBC and provides an SDK. Real-time exchange to other systems is provided via REST API. D-QUANTUM Connect is basically a framework that provides ready-to-use connectors to extract metadata from various source systems or to build new connectors.
D-QUANTUM covers a full branch of catalog use cases including search & discovery, business glossary, lineage, data products & marketplace functionality and of course data governance capabilities. Supportive features like the configurable workflow engine and the integrated CMS help to shape and personalize the user experience. For metadata curation, D-QUANTUM supports users with algorithms, clear structures and an Excel interface to export/import metadata information. Providing an intuitive and familiar interface to business users via Excel is a good option to increase catalog adoption in the company and to collect business knowledge. The idea is quite simple: D-QUANTUM generates an Excel sheet with a predefined structure. Users can edit this sheet by adding metadata information for tables, logic and more into the structure. After editing, the sheet can be re-imported and loaded into the catalog.
The tool itself is geared towards flexibility. Synabi provides an open and extendable metadata model to store and expose various metadata objects. An out-of-the-box business model can be adapted or redesigned by customers, and workflows can be easily customized. Of course, customizable role-specific and individual views on metadata (with some built-in roles, such as owner and steward) are provided, but the metadata model remains the same for all users.
In terms of ecosystem integration, the solution can be integrated with surrounding processes and tools to support, for example, direct data access if required.
