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    Data Lake Formation:Manage catalogs

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    Data Lake Formation:Manage catalogs

    Last Updated:Nov 05, 2025

    In Data Lake Formation (DLF), a catalog is the top-level container for organizing your metadata. It provides a hierarchical structure for your databases and tables. Using catalogs, you can keep metadata separate for different teams, manage data storage, and simplify management. This topic guides you through creating, modifying, and deleting a catalog.

    Prerequisites

    • You have Set up DLF.

      Note

      The activation and authorization are performed only once when you first set up for DLF environment.

    • To manage catalogs as a RAM user, you must have the following permissions:

      • API permissions: You have been assigned the AliyunDLFFullAccess permission policy or a policy that contains catalog-related authorization actions. For more information, see RAM authorization action reference.

      • Data permissions: You must have been granted the super_administrator or admin system role or a custom role that has catalog-related permissions. For more information, see Configure data permissions.

    Limitations

    You can create a maximum of 10 catalogs per account in each region. To request an increase to this limit, submit a ticket.

    Create a catalog

    1. Log on to the DLF console.

    2. On the Catalogs page, click Create Catalog and configure the following parameters.

      Configuration Item

      Description

      Catalog Name

      Enter a unique name for the catalog.

      Description

      Enter a description for the catalog.

      Storage Type

      Fixed to Standard Storage.

      Storage Redundancy Type

      Select a redundancy policy for your data:

      • LRS (Locally Redundant Storage): (Default) Stores data in a single zone. If the zone is unavailable, data becomes inaccessible.

      • ZRS (Zone-Redundant Storage): Replicates data across multiple zones within a region for higher availability.

      Note

      • You cannot change the redundancy type from ZRS to LRS after the catalog is created.

      • ZRS provides higher data availability but also incurs higher costs.

    3. Read and select Terms of Service, then click Create Catalog.

    View a catalog

    1. In the left navigation pane, click Catalogs, and click the name of your catalog.

    2. On the Details tab, view the catalog's basic information.

    3. Click the Permissions tab to grant catalog-level permissions to DLF users or roles. For more information, see Manage data authorizations.

    4. Click the Storage Optimization tab to configure storage tiering. For more information, see Storage optimization.

    5. Click the Catalog Configuration tab to configure a lifecycle policy for file fragmentation and overwrite the default properties for creating Paimon tables. For more information, see Catalog configuration.

    Storage optimization

    Configuration item

    Description

    Intelligent Tiering

    imageOnce this feature is enabled, DLF automatically tiers storage for hot and cold data across all tables in the catalog, according to your configured lifecycle rules. You can specify the tiering policy and rules as needed.

    Note

    • Catalog-level intelligent tiering: When enabled at the catalog level, intelligent storage tiering is automatically applied to all tables and inherits catalog settings. You can customize configurations at the table level. Modifying table-level settings will remove the "Inherited from Catalog" status.

    • Table-level intelligent tiering: If catalog-level intelligent tiering is disabled, you can still enable and configure it independently for individual tables.

    Tiering Strategy

    • Last Access Time: Rules are triggered by the last access time of table or partition data.

    • Last Update Time: Rules are triggered by the last update time of table or partition data.

    Tiering Rule

    The minimum storage duration varies by storage class.

    Configure tiering rules as follows:

    • Transition to Infrequent Access

      • Days: Enter a custom number of days. Default: 30 days.

        Data is automatically moved to the Infrequent Access (IA) storage class if it has not been accessed for the specified duration. Data in IA storage is accessible by compute engines, but with reduced performance.

      • Convert to Standard Storage Upon Access: DLF automatically transforms the partition or non-partitioned table to the Standard storage class upon access.

        Note

        This option is only available when Tiering Strategy is set to Last Access Time.

    • Transition to Archive

      • Days: Enter a custom number of days. Default: 60 days.

        Data is automatically moved to the Archive storage class if it has not been accessed for the specified duration. Data in Archive storage is inaccessible by compute engines.

      • Convert to Standard Storage Upon Access: DLF automatically transforms the partition or non-partitioned table to the Standard storage class upon access.

        Note

        This option is only available when Tiering Strategy is set to Last Access Time.

    • Transition to Cold Archive

      • Days: Enter a custom number of days. Default: 180 days.

        Data is automatically moved to the Cold Archive storage class if it has not been accessed for the specified duration. Data in Cold Archive storage is inaccessible by compute engines.

    Catalog configuration

    • File Fragment Lifecycle

      Specify the expiration time for file fragments. A minimum value is 1 day. Expired fragments are automatically deleted and are irrecovered.

    • Advanced Settings

      Overwrite the default properties for creating Paimon tables. For more information, see Paimon Table.

    Delete a catalog

    Important

    Before you delete a catalog, you must delete all tables from the default database and all other user-created databases within the catalog.

    1. On the Catalog list, click Delete in the Actions column.

    2. In the dialog box, click OK.