POST_START

Creating Business-Domain Security Boundaries with Separate Catalogs

I recently had the opportunity to help my organization implement a more secure and organized data governance strategy. As part of this effort, we decided to create separate Unity Catalogs for each business domain—Finance, HR, and Sales. This approach allows us to enforce security boundaries that align with our organizational structure and data access policies.

Understanding Current Catalog Permissions

Before making any changes, I wanted to understand the current state of permissions across our catalogs. I started by checking the grants on the finance_prod catalog to see which principals have access and what actions they’re allowed to perform.

SHOW GRANTS ON CATALOG finance_prod;

I saw a representative result like this:

principal | actionType | objectType
data_analysts | SELECT | TABLE
data_engineers | MODIFY | TABLE

This output showed that the data_analysts group has SELECT access to tables in the Finance catalog, while data_engineers have MODIFY access. This was consistent with our initial understanding of access rights for this domain.

Verifying HR Catalog Permissions

Next, I wanted to make sure the HR catalog had similar permissions, as it was part of the same security boundary. I ran the same SHOW GRANTS command on the hr_prod catalog.

SHOW GRANTS ON CATALOG hr_prod;

I saw a representative result like this:

<
principal | actionType | objectType
data_analysts | SELECT | TABLE
data_engineers | MODIFY | TABLE

It was reassuring to see that the HR catalog followed the same permission structure as Finance. This consistency helped reinforce our approach to data security across domains.

Checking Sales Catalog Permissions

To ensure all business domains were aligned with the same security model, I checked the sales_prod catalog as well. I ran the SHOW GRANTS command to see what access was granted.

SHOW GRANTS ON CATALOG sales_prod;

I saw a representative result like this:

principal | actionType | objectType
data_analysts | SELECT | TABLE
data_engineers | MODIFY | TABLE

This result confirmed that the Sales catalog followed the same permission structure as Finance and HR. This uniformity across domains made it easier to manage access and enforce security policies consistently.

Reflecting on the Process

By running these SHOW GRANTS commands, I was able to verify that our catalogs were aligned with our security strategy. This step was crucial to ensure that we didn’t introduce any inconsistencies when moving forward with creating and managing separate catalogs for each business domain.

As I moved forward, I knew that the next step would be to refine these permissions further, perhaps adding more granular controls based on specific roles and responsibilities within each domain. But for now, this initial verification gave me confidence that our approach was on the right track.