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Brendan Clement
486f6c66bb
This PR is part of the documentation revamp. Once the full set of PRs is merged, we’ll publish the combined site to staging for review before updating docs.lancedb.com. The introductory pages are inconsistent, and the old PR split asked reviewers to review some pages twice. This brings the final quickstart, connection guide, architecture and Concepts pages together. It clarifies OSS and Enterprise, simplifies naming rules and includes the navigation and diagram fixes from #4489. Function and Secret details on the Concepts pages are MDX comments until their release, and CONTRIBUTING.md explains how to write docs before a release. Includes #4532. Ingestion, search and integrations are in #4533; data workflows, SQL and operations are in #4534. Each MDX file has one PR owner. Local assembly, Mint validation and link checks pass. The Function pages stay published from `main` until #4534 hides them, so hold publication until the complete stack is integrated.
67 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
67 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
---
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title: "Lance Catalog"
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sidebarTitle: "Lance Catalog"
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description: "Organize, find and control access to your data in LanceDB."
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icon: sitemap
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keywords: ["catalog", "namespace", "hierarchy", "governance", "database", "table", "view"]
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---
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## Catalog overview {#catalog}
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A catalog keeps track of named data objects, such as tables and views, so
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applications can discover and access them. In LanceDB, it organizes those
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objects into databases and namespaces.
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## Databases, namespaces and tables {#objects}
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A database contains namespaces that group related tables and views. Namespaces
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can also contain other namespaces, allowing teams to organize data by project,
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environment or purpose.
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For example, a search application can keep production and staging data in
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separate namespaces within the same database:
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```mermaid
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flowchart TD
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database["ai_data · database"] --> prod["prod · namespace"]
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database --> staging["staging · namespace"]
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prod --> prod_docs["documents · table"]
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staging --> staging_docs["documents · table"]
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```
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<span id="views" />
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| Object | What it represents |
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| --- | --- |
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| [Database](/management/database) | A container for namespaces and their data objects. |
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| [Namespace](/management/namespace) | A named group of tables, views or nested namespaces. |
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| [Table](/management/table) | Data stored as rows and columns. |
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| [View](/management/view) | A saved query, evaluated when read. Available in Enterprise. |
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| [Materialized view](/management/materialized-view) | The stored results of a query, updated by a refresh. |
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{/*
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Draft for the Functions release. Add this row to the table above:
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| [Function](/management/function) | Registered code used to compute column values. Available in Enterprise. |
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*/}
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<span id="resolution" />
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## Organization and access control {#governance}
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- **Separate projects and environments.** Keep production and staging tables
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in distinct namespaces, even when they use the same table names.
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- **Find shared datasets.** Give teams a consistent place to discover and
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access the data they work with.
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- **Control access in Enterprise.** Use permissions on databases, namespaces
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and tables to manage who can access shared data and what they can do with it.
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<span id="elsewhere" />
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## Learn more {#next}
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- [Databases](/management/database): connect to and manage a database.
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- [Namespaces](/management/namespace): create groups and address tables within them.
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- [Tables](/management/table): create, inspect and manage your data.
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- [Views](/management/view) and [materialized views](/management/materialized-view): work with query-defined data.
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- [Authorization](/governance/authorization): configure Enterprise access permissions.
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