Q&A with MANTA SVP Ernie Ostic
As a data lineage expert, what are your thoughts as you see companies moving to Azure and Purview?
It helps to first understand what organizations believe Microsoft Purview is and how they plan to use it. Purview is Microsoft’s solution in the catalog and metadata inventory space, part of the Intelligent Data Platform (IDP) that includes everything already available in Azure. Ultimately, it comes down to one key question: “Where do I find the information I need?”
Purview works well for companies that are cloud-native and don’t have significant legacy environments. However, many enterprises still operate massive on-premises ecosystems — mainframes, Informatica, Oracle databases, or SQL Servers — systems that Purview alone can’t fully connect with.
That’s where MANTA and Prolifics come in. Together, we aggregate valuable metadata from across these hybrid environments. So, for customers that want Purview as their catalog of the future, our joint solution helps them complete the picture. Without MANTA and Prolifics, they’d have missing data and incomplete lineage. Our combined expertise ensures organizations realize the full benefits of adopting Purview.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform offering products and services to build, run, and manage applications across clouds, on-premises, and at the edge.
Microsoft Purview provides a unified data governance solution to manage and govern on-premises, multicloud, and SaaS data environments.
We’re using terms like “metadata” and “legacy systems.” How do you explain the concept of “lineage” to non-technical audiences, as well as the Connector itself?
When I talk to business leaders or managers, I emphasize why lineage matters. For instance, imagine you’re a manager trying to understand where a specific value in a report came from. You have people asking, “How was this number calculated?” or “Which data source was used?” That’s exactly why lineage is essential — it provides transparency and trust in your data. Even Microsoft’s Purview documentation highlights the critical role of lineage.
However, business users also need to realize that while Purview supports lineage, Microsoft’s built-in connectors are primarily designed for Azure-native sources. This raises a key challenge: how do you bring in non-Azure or legacy systems into Purview for lineage tracking?
If your reports rely on data from legacy platforms — not Azure — you still want that data’s lineage visible in the same Purview environment. Otherwise, you’re just creating another silo of metadata. Ignoring critical on-premises systems means missing a big part of your data story.
That’s exactly why our Connector exists — to bridge those gaps and ensure true, end-to-end visibility.
MANTA is a world-class data lineage platform that eliminates data blind spots and delivers complete visibility across your data environment. With MANTA, organizations gain control of their data pipelines, enabling smarter, data-driven strategies and decisions.
Purview is described as a data governance solution. How do you view governance in this context?
Governance is never easy — it requires the right methodology, approach, and long-term strategy. Lineage is only one piece of the much larger data governance puzzle. I like to think of governance as a three-legged stool:
- Common understanding of data and metadata – establishing glossaries that define terms, numbers, and business events.
- Data quality awareness – ensuring your data is accurate and reliable.
- Lineage – knowing exactly how your data moves and transforms.
If any of those legs are missing, your governance framework is unstable. MANTA provides the lineage leg exceptionally well, but the other components must also be strong. That’s where Prolifics comes in — bringing deep expertise in data integration, governance, and modernization to create a holistic governance solution.
Governance isn’t a “set it and forget it” process. It’s continuous, and that’s why our partnership works so effectively. Prolifics has the long-term governance experience that organizations need to succeed.
Prolifics advises on, implements, and supports data modernization and governance solutions. Their expertise is built on hundreds of successful projects across industries and business sizes.
MANTA and Prolifics are currently recruiting organizations to participate as Connector beta companies. What are you looking for?
We want to engage organizations that are serious about Purview adoption. Some of the questions we’d ask include:
- Are you committed to Purview as your data catalog solution?
- Where are you in the installation or implementation process?
- What types of legacy platforms are part of your environment?
If an organization is eager to adopt Purview and uses classic technologies that MANTA and Prolifics handle so effectively together, that’s the perfect fit for a beta implementation.
Don’t miss the opportunity to become a Connector beta company — and be among the first to experience the power of complete, unified lineage within Microsoft Purview.
