Data Discovery and Governance for AI with GCP Data Catalog

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

Data Discovery and Governance are critical aspects of managing and understanding data, especially in large-scale AI applications where data sources are abundant and diverse. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers a service called Data Catalog, which is a fully managed and scalable metadata management service that allows organizations to quickly discover, manage, and understand their data in Google Cloud.

Using Pulumi, you can programmatically define and manage your GCP Data Catalog resources, making it easier to maintain and evolve your data governance framework as your AI applications grow.

Here's a Pulumi program in Python that demonstrates how to configure a Data Catalog in GCP:

1. **Taxonomy Creation**: Taxonomies are hierarchical groupings of policy tags that classify data along a common axis. For instance, you might have a taxonomy for data sensitivity that includes tags like "PII" (Personally Identifiable Information) and "Public".

2. **Policy Tag Creation**: Once you have a taxonomy, you can create policy tags within it. These tags can be used to set fine-grained access control on data assets.

3. **Entry Group Creation**: Entry groups are containers that hold data entries. They are typically used to organize entries that have something in common, like being related to the same system or subject area.

4. **Data Entry Creation**: Entries are the individual items that data catalogs manage; for example, a BigQuery table entry provides metadata about a BigQuery table.

Let's dive into the code:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_gcp as gcp

# Initialize a project and a region, replace these with your GCP project ID and the region you want to deploy in.
project = 'my-gcp-project'
region = 'us-central1'

# Create a Data Catalog Taxonomy
taxonomy = gcp.datacatalog.Taxonomy("my-taxonomy",
                                     project=project,
                                     region=region,
                                     display_name="My Data Governance Taxonomy",
                                     description="This Taxonomy contains policy tags for governing data access",
                                     activated_policy_types=["FINE_GRAINED_ACCESS_CONTROL"])

# You would typically replace 'taxonomy_id' with a resource reference like taxonomy.id
# Create a Policy Tag within the created Taxonomy
policy_tag = gcp.datacatalog.PolicyTag("my-policy-tag",
                                       project=project,
                                       location=region,
                                       taxonomy=taxonomy.id,
                                       display_name="PII",
                                       description="Policy Tag for Personally Identifiable Information")

# Create an Entry Group to organize related data Catalog entries
entry_group = gcp.datacatalog.EntryGroup("my-entry-group",
                                         project=project,
                                         location=region,
                                         entry_group_id="my_data_assets",
                                         description="Entry Group for my data assets")

# Create a Data Catalog Entry for a hypothetical BigQuery Table
entry = gcp.datacatalog.Entry("my-entry",
                              entry_group=entry_group.name,
                              project=project,
                              location=region,
                              entry_id="my_bigquery_table_entry",
                              description="BigQuery Table Entry",
                              display_name="My BigQuery Table",
                              type="TABLE",
                              linked_resource="//bigquery.googleapis.com/projects/my-gcp-project/datasets/my_dataset/tables/my_table")

# The following are outputs that you can use to get the details of the created resources.
pulumi.export('taxonomy_id', taxonomy.id)
pulumi.export('policy_tag_id', policy_tag.id)
pulumi.export('entry_group_id', entry_group.id)
pulumi.export('entry_id', entry.id)

```

This program sets up a basic Data Catalog structure using Pulumi. Here's a quick breakdown of what each block is doing:

- **Taxonomy**: This block creates a new taxonomy in Data Catalog for data governance policy tags.
- **Policy Tag**: It creates a policy tag within the taxonomy. These tags are used to annotate datasets with information like sensitivity (e.g., PII for personal information).
- **Entry Group**: This block creates a logical grouping of catalog entries called an "entry group." Think of it as a folder in which you will organize your data assets.
- **Data Entry**: This defines a "data entry" in the catalog for a BigQuery table, including a link to the actual resource. It could be any data resource on GCP such as Pub/Sub topics, GCS buckets, or BigTable instances.

By running this Pulumi program, you will get a structured way to describe your data locations and their associated governance policies, allowing for better data discovery and compliance enforcement in AI applications.

Remember to replace placeholder strings like 'my-gcp-project', 'us-central1', and the BigQuery dataset and table references with your actual GCP project ID, desired region, and the actual resources you are cataloging.

After running this Pulumi program, you'll have a Data Catalog configured, which can then be interacted with through the GCP console or the GCP SDK to enforce data governance policies, discover datasets, and understand your data landscape better.