Alation
Alation is a data catalog platform that provides data discovery, governance, and collaboration capabilities. It is designed to help developers, data engineers, and analysts efficiently search, understand, and manage enterprise data assets.
Alation provides metadata management, lineage tracking, and role-based access control to simplify interaction with distributed datasets across the organization.
Software pattern summary
The following table gives an overview of the pattern characteristics:
Product component | OS type | Versioning | Pattern depth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alation Server | UNIX | Package versioning | Instance-based |
Platforms supported by the pattern
The pattern discovers Alation deployments on the UNIX system.
Identification
To run a discovery of the product, the pattern must be triggered. This section describes conditions under which the pattern can be triggered.
Software instance triggers
The following table gives details about the pattern triggers:
Pattern | Trigger node | Attribute | Condition | Argument |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alation | DiscoveredProcess | cmd | matches | java |
| args | matches regex | alation\.desktop\.ServerServer | ||
The pattern activates when a Java process is detected with command java and arguments containing the class alation.desktop.ServerServer.
Software Instance type attributes
The pattern in this module sets the following attributes:
Pattern name | SI type |
|---|---|
| Alation 1.0 | Alation |
The SI type = “Alation”. The pattern also sets optional attributes such as version, product_version, install_root, short_name, and name.
Simple identification mappings
The following components or processes are identified by using the simple identity mappings that map the product's known processes:
Name | Command |
|---|---|
| Alation | java with regex alation\.desktop\.ServerServer |
| Alation Task Server | java with regex alation\.taskserver\.TaskServer |
| Alation Auth Server | java with regex alation\.authserver\.AuthServer |
These mappings allow the inference engine to associate known Alation-related Java processes with their respective components.
Versioning
Version information for the product is collected by using the package versioning method.
Package versioning
The Alation pattern extracts versioning information using the function:
DiscoveryFunctions.packageVersioning(host, [regex "alation-\d+"]); |
It expects package structures such as:
| alation-19.5.0.94775 |
The full version is parsed from the package name, and product_version is extracted as the leading numeric part, e.g.:
• full_version - 19.5.0.94775
• product_version - 19.5
If versioning is not available, the SI is still created without version values.
Application model produced by the software pattern
If the pattern discovers a SoftwareInstance of Alation, it defines the Alation application model, which includes SoftwareInstance node with attributes:
• name
• short_name
• version
• product_version
• install_root
• type = Alation
Pattern trigger
The Alation pattern is triggered by detecting a Java process running the class:
alation.desktop.ServerServer |
SI depth
The Alation pattern creates an instance-based SoftwareInstance.
The key is based on the product type and host:
%si_type%/%host.key% |
This ensures independent SI creation for each Alation runtime on a host.
Subject matter expertise
Inputs from subject matter experts are welcome on any potential improvements to detection logic, version extraction, or extended component modeling not covered in this pattern.
Testing
The pattern has been tested against the available customer data.
Open issues
There are no known open issues with this pattern.