The University of Arizona is a research university located in the United States, boasting over 54,000 enrolled students as of Fall 2025. As one of the nation’s top public research universities, the University of Arizona operates a massive data ecosystem. Given the massive volume of research information that flows through the university daily, data lineage is key, and UofA turned to Cloudera for assistance.
Overcoming data fragmentation
Supporting 54,000+ students with a lean team of 55 professionals, the University of Arizona needed to move beyond manual data tracking.
As an institution running over 39,000 queries daily and hosting approximately 4,500 active dashboards, the University of Arizona had a clear need for an effective governance tool due to data silos. Before Cloudera, performing an “impact analysis” to determine what would break if a source table changed required days of manual SQL code reviews. Wanting to eliminate these silos and establish a single source of truth, UofA realized it needed to provide a single view of information for its 55-person data engineering team to conduct data science, data governance, and data warehousing as part of its duties.
To manage information properly, the University of Arizona also demanded the ability to conduct extract, transform, and load (ETL) impact analysis to ensure that integrations would not disrupt the flow of information between systems. Additionally, the university required a platform that not only provided a data lineage catalog and comprehensive data governance tools but also included connectors for seamless integration.
With the goal of making data-driven decisions a reality by creating actionable insights, the University of Arizona chose to use Cloudera Data Lineage to eliminate data silos and put information in the hands of its data engineering team.
Engineering actionable insights at scale
The University of Arizona’s data engineering team began implementing Data Lineage in 2021, recognizing the platform's potential. Right away, the team saw immediate benefits of using Data Lineage. ETL impact analysis was a major factor in what the university was looking for in a platform, with the ability to track data flow and see in real time if changes are occurring that need to be addressed.
By better understanding the flow of information, data analysts and business intelligence developers can use a self-service tool built into Cloudera Data Lineage to allow members of the data engineering team to quickly track the data’s movement.
Two additional benefits of the university's decision to adopt Data Lineage were a reduction in time spent on manual tasks and the elimination of data silos, helping eliminate redundant information and ensure that UofA spent more time on more important tasks. With a holistic view of the data and its journey, the engineering team can now better understand which information leads to actionable insights and make data-driven decisions.
Moving forward, the University of Arizona aims to expand the use of Data Lineage features for its campus users, according to UofA Data Engineering Lead Shiva Chidara.
In our latest blog, Now is the Time for Higher Education Institutions to Master Data Lineage, you’ll discover how the university improved efficiency and reduced costs using Cloudera Data Lineage.
