What is a data catalog?
What is a data catalog? A clear explanation for Azerbaijani business — and how Hermes applies it.
Understanding the Modern Data Catalog
A data catalog serves as a structured, centralized inventory of an organization's data assets, encompassing databases, tables, columns, and their specific business meanings. By acting as a comprehensive library index, it eliminates the friction of hunting through fragmented tables to decipher field definitions. This ensures that analysts, managers, and decision-makers share a single, authoritative reference point, fostering a culture of data trust and accessibility across the entire enterprise. Hermes, the AI analytics assistant by Allmaz, evolves this concept by transforming a static catalog into an interactive experience. By allowing users to query their own databases using plain language in Azerbaijani, Russian, or English, Hermes bridges the gap between complex data structures and actionable insights. To maintain absolute transparency, the system reveals the exact SQL generated for every response, ensuring the data catalog remains fully auditable and verifiable by technical teams.
Strategic Advantages of an AI-Powered Data Catalog
Eliminates time wasted on manual data discovery by providing a shared, intuitive understanding of all data assets.
Increases organizational trust in data by allowing analysts to verify the exact SQL logic used to derive any specific figure.
Democratizes data access, enabling non-technical stakeholders to retrieve accurate answers without writing complex SQL code.
Strengthens governance and compliance through a clear, transparent record of existing data and how it is accessed.
Accelerates employee onboarding by allowing new team members to explore the data landscape independently.
Ensures maximum security via a read-only, least-privilege architecture that prevents any accidental modification of production data.
How Hermes Implements Data Catalog Principles
Plain-language querying
Hermes translates plain-language questions — typed in Azerbaijani, Russian, or English — directly into SQL, so any team member can explore the data catalog without technical training.
Full SQL transparency
Every answer Hermes returns is accompanied by the exact SQL statement it executed. This means you can audit, verify, or hand off any query, keeping your data catalog honest and traceable.
Live dashboards over your own databases
Rather than exporting data to a third-party service, Hermes builds live dashboards directly on top of your existing databases, so the catalog always reflects the current state of your data.
Read-only by design
Hermes operates with a least-privilege role that can only SELECT. It cannot insert, update, or delete records, protecting the integrity of your data at the database level.
Trilingual support
With native support for Azerbaijani, Russian, and English, Hermes makes the data catalog accessible to every member of your team regardless of their preferred language.
Self-hosted deployment
Hermes drops onto any Docker host, meaning your data catalog and all queries stay within your own infrastructure — no data leaves your environment.
Turning Your Database into a Queryable Catalog
Common Questions About Hermes and Data Catalogs
Do I need to migrate my data to use Hermes?
No. Hermes connects directly to your existing databases and runs queries in place. Your data never leaves your own infrastructure, ensuring maximum security and zero migration overhead.
Can Hermes accidentally change or delete our data?
No. Hermes is read-only by design. It operates with a least-privilege database role that can only execute SELECT statements, making it technically impossible to modify, insert, or delete any records.
What languages can our team use to ask questions?
Hermes provides native trilingual support for Azerbaijani, Russian, and English, allowing your entire team to interact with the data catalog in their preferred language.
How do we verify that the AI-generated answers are accurate?
Transparency is a core feature of Hermes. Every answer is accompanied by the exact SQL statement used to retrieve the data, allowing your technical team to review, copy, or independently verify the logic.
What infrastructure is required to deploy Hermes?
Hermes is designed for flexibility and is self-hosted. It can be deployed on any Docker host, making it compatible with most modern server environments without the need for specialized hardware.
Ready to Make Your Data Accessible to Everyone?
Hermes brings data catalog transparency and plain-language querying to your own databases — securely, in your language, on your infrastructure. Reach out to the Allmaz team to see how Hermes can work for your organization.
Request a demo