What is the purpose of a catalog in data governance within Fabric?

• A. Stores authentication tokens for users.
• B. Tracks only data ownership metadata.
• C. Tracks lifecycle, schema, lineage, and metadata of datasets to enable governance and discoverability.
• D. Serves as a raw data storage layer.

Answer: (C)

In Fabric, the catalog acts as a metadata backbone for data governance, capturing the lifecycle, schema, lineage, and metadata of datasets to enable governance and discoverability. It records how data assets are created, changed, retained, and deprecated; it stores schema information such as tables, columns, and data types so users understand structure; it tracks data lineage to show where data originates, how it’s transformed, and where it’s consumed, which supports impact analysis and trust. It also holds ownership, classifications, policies, tags, and quality metadata to support governance workflows and policy enforcement. This combination makes data assets searchable and understandable across the organization, which is the core purpose of the catalog. It’s not used for storing authentication tokens, it’s not limited to ownership metadata, and it isn’t a raw data storage layer.