ML-Powered Data Catalogs and Metadata Inference for Self-Describing Big Data Ecosystems

In today's fast-changing data world, businesses have too much data that is too different and spread out. Standard methods for managing data don't always work well for finding, understanding, and applying data. Modern data catalogues are more than simply static lists of items; they are also dynamic places to store information that provide structure, meaning, and easy access to large data ecosystems. These catalogues can really shine when ML is applied to figure things out smartly, even when the data sets are too messy, not well-documented, or not well-organized. Data catalogues that utilize ML look at these current data trends, user behaviors & contextual signals to automatically tag, categorize & link their data assets. This makes the data self-descriptive and makes governance easier. This solves a big problem: creating information by hand is hard work, prone to their mistakes, and typically doesn't work well with different teams & also technologies. Our methodology utilizes both supervised and unsupervised ML techniques to infer schema details, data lineage, semantic links, and use contexts, therefore reducing dependence on human input while improving their data discoverability & the dependability. This paper suggests a scalable architecture that integrates ML models directly into the cataloguing process, enabling actual time metadata enhancement as data is ingested into the system. Additionally, we have a feedback mechanism that constantly improves the quality of inferences via user interactions & validations. Initial findings indicate significant improvements in data discoverability, accelerated onboarding for data users, and improved compliance readiness, resulting from enhanced metadata completeness and traceability. This work shows how data catalogues that use machine learning can change from simple documentation tools into these smart systems that make self-service analytics easier, promote data democracy & support truly self-describing big data platforms. This makes organizations more agile and focused on getting insights.