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Version: 0.13.0

Introduction to Metadata Ingestion

Find Integration Source

Please see our Integrations page to browse our ingestion sources and filter on their features.

Integration Methods

DataHub offers three methods for data ingestion:

  • UI Ingestion : Easily configure and execute a metadata ingestion pipeline through the UI.
  • CLI Ingestion guide : Configure the ingestion pipeline using YAML and execute by it through CLI.
  • SDK-based ingestion : Use Python Emitter or Java emitter to programmatically control the ingestion pipelines.

Types of Integration

Integration can be divided into two concepts based on the method:

Push-based Integration

Push-based integrations allow you to emit metadata directly from your data systems when metadata changes. Examples of push-based integrations include Airflow, Spark, Great Expectations and Protobuf Schemas. This allows you to get low-latency metadata integration from the "active" agents in your data ecosystem.

Pull-based Integration

Pull-based integrations allow you to "crawl" or "ingest" metadata from the data systems by connecting to them and extracting metadata in a batch or incremental-batch manner. Examples of pull-based integrations include BigQuery, Snowflake, Looker, Tableau and many others.

Core Concepts

The following are the core concepts related to ingestion:

  • Sources: Data systems from which extract metadata. (e.g. BigQuery, MySQL)
  • Sinks: Destination for metadata (e.g. File, DataHub)
  • Recipe: The main configuration for ingestion in the form or .yaml file

For more advanced guides, please refer to the following: