Academmia

Microsoft Purview

az-900•beginner•

Management and governance

Microsoft Purview

Short Summary

Microsoft Purview helps organizations understand, find, and govern their data by organizing information about that data (metadata). It can scan connected data sources to build a searchable catalog and help classify data to support governance and compliance work. Purview does not store your business data or run analytics jobs; it helps you manage the visibility and governance of data that already lives elsewhere.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Explain what Microsoft Purview is used for in simple terms.
  • Describe what a data catalog is and why metadata matters.
  • Identify how scanning and classification support governance and compliance.
  • Recognize common “wrong tool” situations (for example, treating Purview as storage or security monitoring).

Core Concepts

What Microsoft Purview is for

Microsoft Purview is a set of services that supports data governance at scale. A practical way to think about it is:

  • “Help me discover what data we have”
  • “Help me understand what it is and who owns it”
  • “Help me govern it consistently (especially for sensitive or regulated data)”

Data vs. metadata

Purview focuses on metadata, not copying your actual business data.

  • Data: the actual content you care about (for example, customer records, invoices, files, tables).
  • Metadata: “data about data” (for example, table name, column names, file location, data types, labels/tags, descriptions, and ownership).

Purview collects and manages metadata so that people can find and use data safely and consistently.

Data catalog

A data catalog is a searchable inventory of data assets and their metadata. A good catalog helps you answer questions like:

  • “Where is the official customer dataset?”
  • “Which table feeds this report?”
  • “Who owns this dataset and can explain it?”

This reduces duplicated datasets, improves trust, and speeds up discovery in larger organizations.

Scanning and classification

Purview can connect to data sources and scan them to collect metadata. It can also help with classification, which is about identifying what kind of data an asset contains (for example, data that should be treated as sensitive). Classification improves governance because you can apply consistent rules and processes once you know what you have.

What Purview is not

Purview is not:

  • a storage service (it does not replace data lakes, databases, or warehouses)
  • an analytics engine (it does not run your queries or pipelines)
  • a security monitoring tool (it does not replace real-time monitoring/incident tools)

Rule of thumb: if the goal is “find and understand data assets and their metadata,” Purview is a good fit.

Practical Understanding

Practical Situation 1: When you need a “map” of your organization’s data

Your data is spread across databases, storage accounts, and analytics systems. Teams keep asking where the “real” dataset is, and different departments create duplicates because they can’t find what already exists.

How to think about it: Purview can scan data sources and build a catalog of data assets and metadata. The catalog becomes a shared place where people search, see descriptions, and identify owners.

Common misunderstanding: “Purview moves all our data into one place.” It doesn’t. It focuses on cataloging and governance using metadata.

Practical Situation 2: When compliance depends on knowing where sensitive data exists

You need to reduce compliance risk, and part of that is knowing where sensitive data lives (for example, personal data). You can’t protect or govern what you can’t find.

How to think about it: Purview’s scanning and classification can help you identify and label data assets so governance and compliance processes have better visibility.

Common misunderstanding: “Purview is the same as a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tool.” Purview is about data governance and compliance visibility, not real-time security monitoring and incident response.

Practical Situation 3: When your data is hybrid or multi-cloud

Your organization runs data systems across Azure and other environments. You want a consistent way to understand data assets without forcing every team to use the same storage or database.

How to think about it: Purview can catalog metadata from different sources so you have one governance view, even if the data itself remains distributed.

Common misunderstanding: “Governance tools only work for one cloud.” Governance usually needs to span multiple environments because the data estate often spans multiple environments.

Practical Situation 4: When someone suggests Purview as a data warehouse

A team says: “Let’s put all our data in Purview so we can run analytics from there.”

How to think about it: Purview isn’t a data storage or analytics engine. You store data in the appropriate databases/lakes/warehouses and run analytics with the services designed for analytics.

Common misunderstanding: “Catalog = storage.” A catalog describes assets; it doesn’t replace the systems that store and process them.

Common Pitfalls

  • Mistake: Treating Purview like a storage or data processing service. Correction: Use Purview for governance and metadata; use dedicated storage/analytics services for storing and processing data.

  • Mistake: Assuming Purview is a security monitoring tool. Correction: Use Purview for governance and compliance visibility; use security-focused services for monitoring, detection, and incident response.

  • Mistake: Thinking governance only matters after data problems happen. Correction: Start governance early so teams can find, trust, and manage data consistently.

  • Mistake: Ignoring ownership and documentation in the catalog. Correction: Keep owners, descriptions, and naming consistent so the catalog stays useful.

  • Mistake: Expecting Purview to automatically fix data quality issues. Correction: Use Purview to improve visibility and governance; handle data quality with dedicated processes and tools.

Check Your Understanding

  1. In your own words, explain the difference between “data” and “metadata.” Give one example of each.
  2. Imagine you joined a new team and need to find the official dataset for “customer orders.” What would you want a data catalog to show you?
  3. Describe a simple workflow for bringing a new data source under governance: what’s the first step, and what outcome are you aiming for?
  4. Why is it risky to say “we don’t need governance because we can just ask around” in a large organization?
  5. Write down one situation where Purview is a good fit and one where it’s clearly the wrong tool, and explain why.

Further Reading