Quickstart: Create an Azure Data Catalog via the Azure portal

Important

New Azure Data Catalog accounts can no longer be created.

For data catalog features, please use the Microsoft Purview service, which offers unified data governance for your entire data estate.

If you're already using Azure Data Catalog, you'll need to create a migration plan for your organization to move to Microsoft Purview by August 2025.

Azure Data Catalog is a fully managed cloud service that serves as a system of registration and system of discovery for enterprise data assets. For a detailed overview, see What is Azure Data Catalog.

This quickstart helps you get started with creating an Azure Data Catalog.

If you don’t have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Prerequisites

Note

Due to Azure security requirements, Azure Data Catalog has enfored Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.2. TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 have been disabled. You may encounter errors running the registration tool if your machine is not updated for TLS 1.2. See Enable Transport Layer Security (1.2) to update your machine for TLS 1.2.

To get started, you need to have:

To set up Data Catalog, you must be the owner or co-owner of an Azure subscription.

Create a data catalog

You can create only one data catalog per organization (Microsoft Entra domain). Therefore, if the owner or co-owner of an Azure subscription who belongs to this Microsoft Entra domain has already created a catalog, then you can't create a catalog again even if you have multiple Azure subscriptions. To test whether a data catalog has been created by a user in your Microsoft Entra domain, go to the Azure Data Catalog home page and verify whether you see the catalog. If a catalog has already been created for you, skip the following procedure and go to the next section.

  1. Go to the Azure portal > Create a resource and select Data Catalog.

    Data catalog resource type with the Create button selected.

  2. Specify a name for the data catalog, the subscription you want to use, the location for the catalog, and the pricing tier. Then select Create.

  3. Go to the Azure Data Catalog home page and select Publish Data.

    On the data catalog homepage, the Publish Data button is selected.

    You can also get to the Data Catalog home page from the Data Catalog service page by selecting Get started.

    The data catalog service page, with the blue get started button at the bottom.

  4. Go to the Settings page.

    The data catalog settings page, with several expandable options.

  5. Expand Pricing and verify your Azure Data Catalog edition (Free or Standard).

    The pricing option expanded with the free edition selected.

  6. If you choose Standard edition as your pricing tier, you can expand Security Groups and enable authorizing Active Directory security groups to access Data Catalog and enable automatic adjustment of billing.

    The security groups option expanded with the option to enable authorizing shown.

  7. Expand Catalog Users and select Add to add users for the data catalog. You're automatically added to this group.

    Catalog users expanded and the add button highlighted.

  8. If you choose Standard edition as your pricing tier, you can expand Glossary Administrators and select Add to add glossary administrator users. You're automatically added to this group.

    Glossary Administrators expanded and the add button highlighted.

  9. Expand Catalog Administrators and select Add to add other administrators for the data catalog. You're automatically added to this group.

    Catalog Administrators expanded and the add button highlighted.

  10. Expand Portal Title and add extra text that will be displayed in the portal title.

    Portal title expanded, showing the text box where optional text can be added.

  11. Once you complete the Settings page, next navigate to the Publish page.

    Data Catalog home page, with the Publish tab selected in the top menu.

Find a data catalog in the Azure portal

  1. On a separate tab in the web browser or in a separate web browser window, go to the Azure portal and sign in with the same account that you used to create the data catalog in the previous step.

  2. Select All services and then select Data Catalog.

    The left Azure portal menu is open, with 'all services' selected. In the services menu, Data Catalog is selected.

    You'll see the data catalog you created in the list. If you don't, check your subscription, resource group, location, and tag filters at the top of the search.

  3. Select the catalog that you created. You'll see the Data Catalog page in the portal, showing details for your Data Catalog.

  4. You can view properties of the data catalog and update them. For example, you can select Pricing tier and change the edition.

Next steps

In this quickstart, you've learned how to create an Azure Data Catalog for your organization. You can now register data sources in your data catalog.