Catalog assets
An asset in a catalog contains information about data or data analysis.
The Lite plan has a limit on the number of assets in a catalog. See IBM Knowledge Catalog plans.
The information about assets that is stored in a catalog includes:
- The type of asset
- Asset properties, such as the description, format, and classification
- The asset access to control who can access the asset
- A preview of the contents of some asset types
- A generated profile of the contents of some asset types
- Ratings and reviews of assets by catalog collaborators
- Activities of some asset types
If policies are enforced for the catalog, they can block specific catalog members from viewing or using the asset. Also, you can decide to mask data in asset columns depending on their contents. In this case, users can view an asset but not all
data is revealed to them. A shield icon 
next to the column name indicates that the data in the column is masked by a rule.
Types of assets
You can add assets from these types of sources to a catalog:
- Files from your local system, including structured data, unstructured data, and images
- Connections to data sources. You can add connections to IBM or third-party data sources.
- Data assets from a connection to a data source
- Connected folder assets from a connection to a file system
- Data assets from projects
- Notebooks from projects
- Trained watsonx.ai Runtime models from projects
- Data assets and COBOL copybooks that are imported from mainframes by using Data Virtualization Manager for z/OS
- Model use cases from the model inventory
Files that are associated with assets, such as local files or notebooks, are stored in the IBM Cloud Object Storage bucket that is associated with the catalog.
For a full list of asset types, see Asset types and properties.
Asset properties
All asset types have a common set of properties. Some asset types have additional properties. For more information, see Asset properties and Adding assets to a catalog.
When you add an asset to a catalog or edit an existing asset, you specify the following common properties:
- The asset name and an optional description. The asset name cannot be empty, contain Unicode control characters, or contain only blank spaces. You can include links in the description.
- Asset format. Automatically detected.
- Tags. Ungoverned metadata that makes searching for the asset easier. Tags can contain only spaces, letters, numbers, underscores, dashes, and the symbols # and @. Click the Add icon
to add tags. - Data classes that are assigned to the asset and to columns in data assets.
- A classification for the data asset.
- Business terms that apply to the asset. You can also add business terms to columns in data assets.
- Relationships with other assets.
- Location. The physical location of the data. The location options are determined by predefined reference data sets. After you assign a location to the asset and add the asset to a catalog, you can't change or remove that location from the asset.
- Sovereignty. The sovereign location of the data. The sovereignty options are determined by predefined reference data sets. After you assign a sovereignty to the asset and add the asset to a catalog, you can't change or remove that location from the asset.
Asset access
You can control access to an asset on the Access page with the privacy level and asset membership:
- Privacy. You can choose whether to restrict access to the asset:
- Public: Default. No restrictions on finding or using the asset.
- Private: Only asset members can find or use the asset.
- Members. The catalog collaborators to add as members of the asset. Members are important if you restrict access to the asset.
Asset roles
You can have one of the following catalog asset roles:
- Asset owner
- Asset editor
- Asset viewer
Depending on your asset role, you can perform different tasks.
Learn more
- Asset types and properties
- Asset previews
- Finding and viewing an asset
- Adding assets to a catalog
- Downloading assets from a catalog
- Editing asset properties
- Managing feature groups
- Adding asset relationships
- Profiling a data asset
- Controlling access to an asset
- Removing an asset
- Adding catalog assets to a project
Parent topic: Catalogs