Azure and Databricks consulting for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and wider MENA

Practical data governance that engineers and auditors both accept

Ownership, access control, lineage and Critical Data Elements implemented in Unity Catalog and Purview.

Overview

Governance fails when it lives in documents nobody reads. We implement it where the data actually is: in Unity Catalog permissions, lineage, classifications and quality controls, backed by a light operating model your business can sustain.

Sound familiar?

  • Nobody can say who owns a dataset or who approved access to it
  • Permissions have grown ad hoc and nobody is sure who can see personal data
  • Regulatory and audit requests for lineage take weeks of manual work
  • Data protection obligations under UAE and Saudi law need technical controls

What we deliver

Operating model

Data owners, stewards and decision rights defined for the domains that matter, without a heavyweight programme.

Unity Catalog design

Catalog, schema and privilege model aligned to domains and environments, including migration from Hive metastore.

Access control and masking

Group-based access, row filters and column masks for personal and commercially sensitive data.

Lineage and auditability

End-to-end lineage from source to report, with audit logs you can hand to internal audit or a regulator.

Critical Data Elements

A register of the fields that matter most, with definitions, owners and linked quality rules.

Purview integration

Microsoft Purview scanning, classification and a business glossary alongside Unity Catalog where needed.

Technology

  • Unity Catalog
  • Microsoft Purview
  • Entra ID
  • Azure Databricks
  • Delta Lake
  • Databricks SQL

What you can expect

Clearownership for every critical dataset
Minutesrather than weeks to answer lineage questions
Least-privilegeaccess enforced by the platform, not by policy documents

How we deliver

The same disciplined approach on every engagement, scaled to your scope.

  1. Assess

    Understand your current platform, data and priorities, and agree what success looks like.

  2. Design

    Target architecture and a phased plan, reviewed with your technical and business owners.

  3. Build

    Hands-on delivery with your team, tested and reconciled as we go.

  4. Hand over

    Documentation, runbooks and mentoring so your team owns the result.

Common questions

Anything else? Ask us directly.

No. We start with the Critical Data Elements behind your most important reports, put owners and controls on those, and expand from there. Governance that delivers value early is governance that survives.

We implement the technical controls that support compliance, such as data classification, masking, access control, retention and audit logging. Legal interpretation of your obligations should remain with your legal or compliance advisers.

They solve different problems. Unity Catalog enforces access and captures lineage inside Databricks; Purview provides an enterprise-wide catalog and classification across many sources. Many organisations use both, and we design how they work together.

Talk to a senior data architect, not a sales team

A 30-minute call to understand your platform and where it is holding you back. You will leave with practical next steps, whether or not we work together.