Catalog Explorer: catalogs, schemas, tables, views, lineage, Marketplace

From Catalog Explorer you search assets, read comments, apply tags, preview data (if privileged), inspect lineage, and see owners and grants. The exam wants you fluent in what each object *is*.

Always think catalog.schema.object. Unqualified names depend on your default catalog/schema — a common exam trap.

• Catalog — top of a metastore (often one per environment: prod, dev).
• Schema (database) — subject area, e.g. finance, gold.
• Table / view / volume / function / model — the object.

• Managed (UC managed) — Databricks owns the data files in a managed location. DROP TABLE removes data files (after a grace period / VACUUM semantics).
• External — table metadata in UC, files live in an external location you registered. DROP TABLE drops the table definition; files remain in storage. That is the classic “SHOW TABLES is empty but the lake still has Parquet” scenario.

• View — saved query; no extra copy of data (unless materialized).
• Certified / trusted datasets — tagged or process-certified gold tables you should prefer for dashboards.
• Lineage — table/column graph across SQL, notebooks, jobs, dashboards. Lineage does not grant SELECT.

Marketplace installs data products into your metastore. After install, objects are normal UC objects: you still need privileges. It is not a security bypass and not a SQL warehouse.

Unity Catalog · Managed vs external · Marketplace