Disaster recovery for Unified Catalog (manual)

This article provides guidance on backup and recovery strategy when using Microsoft Purview Unified Catalog in production deployment. The scope of this article is to cover manual business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) methods that you can set up using APIs.

Features covered

The following areas are covered in this BCDR strategy:

Unified Catalog foundation: Governance Domains, Glossary Terms, and Data Assets — the foundational catalog that organizes and describes an organization's data estate.
Data products: Curated, business-ready data sets with ownership, documentation, terms of use, and audience metadata.
Critical data elements: Regulated or high-value data elements (for example, personal data, financial identifiers) with lifecycle management (Draft → Published → Expired).
Data quality: Quality rules and asset metadata that track data health and conformance across the estate.
Data access: Access request workflows, multi-stage approval chains, policy sets, and permitted use-case definitions for governed data sharing.
Data estate health: CDMC control templates and analytics schedules that continuously measure governance maturity and compliance posture.
Workflows: Configurable multi-stage approval workflows including manager, privacy, and approver stages for data access governance.

BCDR workflow

Step 1. Create an Enterprise tier account

Create a Purview Data Governance account at the Enterprise tier. This serves as the primary account with full governance capabilities.

Step 2. Request Classic Purview provisioning in a secondary region

Create a support ticket through the Customer Support channel requesting enablement of Classic Purview account provisioning in a secondary (paired) region for BCDR purposes.

Step 3. Create a Classic Purview account

After Classic provisioning is enabled in the secondary region, create a Classic Purview account. This account serves as the secondary (backup) account with limited capabilities.

Step 4. Copy data from the Enterprise account to the Classic account

Using the available BCDR APIs (described in the API details section), copy governance data from the Enterprise account (primary) to the Classic account (secondary). This includes:

Governance domains
Data products
Glossary terms
Critical data elements
Data assets
Data Quality metadata
Data estate health configuration
Data access workflows and policies

Step 5. Manage GUIDs during backup

You're responsible for managing and mapping globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) during the backup process. Because the secondary account generates new identifiers, you must maintain a mapping between primary and secondary GUIDs to ensure data consistency and traceability.

Step 6. Validate the secondary account

Use the GET APIs for each feature area to validate that all governance data is replicated to the secondary account:

GET /catalog/businessdomains
GET /catalog/dataProducts
GET /catalog/terms
GET /catalog/criticalDataElements
GET /catalog/dataAssets
GET /quality/bulk-asset-metadata
GET /health/analytics/schedule
GET /dataaccess/workflows

Step 7. Fail over during a disaster recovery (DR) event

When a disaster recovery event occurs, create a support ticket requesting:

Promote the Secondary (Classic) account to Enterprise tier
Demote the Primary (Enterprise) account to Secondary

This completes the failover, and the previously secondary account becomes the new primary with full Enterprise capabilities.

API details

1. Account and provisioning

Get current policies

Verify the BCDR account is operational by listing the current user's policies.

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/policies

Note

Account provisioning is performed with Is BCDR = true. Acquire tokens by using standard Microsoft Entra ID/OAuth flows for Purview REST APIs.

2. Governance domains

Create governance domain

Create a governance domain:

POST https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/businessdomains

Request body:

{
  "name": "BCDR - My Business Domain",
  "type": "DataDomain",
  "status": "Draft",
  "description": "Optional description up to 200k chars",
  "isStagingDomain": false,
  "managedAttributes": []
}

Response body:

{
  "status": "Draft",
  "type": "DataDomain",
  "name": "BCDR - My Business Domain",
  "description": "Optional description up to 200k chars",
  "isRestricted": false,
  "isStagingDomain": false
}

Get governance domains

List the governance domains to confirm replication:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/businessdomains

3. Data products

Create data product

Create a data product under a governance domain:

POST https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/dataProducts

Request body:

{
  "name": "BCDR - Sales Analytics",
  "domain": "<businessDomainId>",
  "status": "Draft",
  "type": "Analytical",
  "endorsed": false,
  "contacts": {
    "owner": [
      {
        "id": "<guidObjectId>",
        "info": "<email>"
      }
    ]
  },
  "description": "Aggregated sales data across regions",
  "businessUse": "Used for quarterly reporting",
  "audience": [
    "DataAnalyst",
    "BusinessUser"
  ],
  "updateFrequency": "Monthly",
  "termsOfUse": [
    {
      "name": "Data Policy",
      "url": "https://contoso.com/policy"
    }
  ],
  "documentation": [
    {
      "name": "User Guide",
      "url": "https://contoso.com/guide"
    }
  ]
}

Response body:

{
  "status": "Draft",
  "type": "Analytical",
  "name": "BCDR - Sales Analytics",
  "description": "Aggregated sales data across regions",
  "businessUse": "Used for quarterly reporting",
  "updateFrequency": "Monthly",
  "endorsed": false
}

Get data products

List the data products:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/dataProducts

4. Glossary terms

Create term

Create a glossary term under a governance domain:

POST https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/terms

Request body:

{
  "name": "BCDR - Customer Revenue",
  "domain": "<businessDomainId>",
  "status": "Draft",
  "description": "Total revenue attributed to a customer",
  "acronyms": [
    "CR",
    "CustRev"
  ],
  "contacts": {
    "owner": [
      {
        "id": "<guidObjectId>",
        "info": "<email>"
      }
    ],
    "expert": [
      {
        "id": "<guidObjectId>",
        "info": "<email>"
      }
    ]
  },
  "resources": [
    {
      "name": "Wiki",
      "url": "https://contoso.com/wiki/customer-revenue"
    }
  ]
}

Response body:

{
  "status": "Draft",
  "name": "BCDR - Customer Revenue",
  "description": "Total revenue attributed to a customer",
  "contacts": {
    "owner": [],
    "expert": []
  },
  "isMigrated": false
}

Note

The API response may return empty contacts arrays even when contacts are provided in the request. Contacts are linked asynchronously and will appear on subsequent GET calls.

Get terms

List the glossary terms:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/terms

5. Critical data elements (CDE)

Create critical data element

Create a critical data element under a governance domain:

POST https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/criticalDataElements

Request body:

{
  "name": "BCDR - Customer SSN",
  "domain": "<businessDomainId>",
  "status": "Draft",
  "dataType": "DateTime",
  "description": "Social Security Number — regulated PII element",
  "contacts": {
    "owner": [
      {
        "id": "<guidObjectId>",
        "info": "<email>"
      }
    ],
    "expert": [
      {
        "id": "<guidObjectId>",
        "info": "<email>"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response body:

{
  "status": "Draft",
  "dataType": "DateTime",
  "name": "BCDR - Customer SSN",
  "description": "Social Security Number - regulated PII element"
}

CDE Data Types: Boolean, DateTime, Number, Text CDE Status Lifecycle: Draft → Published → Expired

Get critical data elements

List the critical data elements:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/criticalDataElements

6. Data assets

Create data asset

Create a data asset that references a source:

POST https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/dataAssets

Request body:

{
  "name": "gold",
  "type": "ADLSGen2Path",
  "source": {
    "type": "PurviewDataMap",
    "accountName": "BCDRSecondary",
    "assetId": "<assetGuid>",
    "assetType": "azure_datalake_gen2_filesystem",
    "fqn": "https://<storageAccount>.dfs.core.windows.net/gold"
  },
  "typeProperties": {
    "serverEndpoint": "<storageAccount>.dfs.core.windows.net",
    "container": "gold"
  },
  "contacts": {
    "owner": [
      {
        "id": "<guidObjectId>",
        "info": "<email>"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Response body:

{
  "name": "gold",
  "status": "ACTIVE",
  "displayText": "gold",
  "source": {
    "type": "PurviewDataMap",
    "assetId": "<assetGuid>"
  }
}

Get data assets

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/catalog/dataAssets

7. Data estate health

CDMC control template

CDMC (Cloud Data Management Capabilities) control templates are auto-created when the BCDR account is provisioned. A global analytics schedule is enabled by default (daily frequency).

Create or update analytics schedule

Create or update the schedule that controls how often data estate health is measured:

PUT https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/health/analytics/schedule?api-version=2024-02-01-preview

Request body:

{
  "frequency": "Hour",
  "interval": 6,
  "startTime": "2026-03-18T00:00:00Z",
  "status": "Enabled",
  "timeZone": "UTC"
}

Response body:

{
  "frequency": "Hour",
  "interval": 6,
  "status": "Enabled",
  "timeZone": "UTC"
}

Get analytics schedule

Retrieve the current analytics schedule:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/health/analytics/schedule?api-version=2024-02-01-preview

8. Data access

Get default access request template

Retrieve the default data access request template:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/dataaccess/workflows/templates/dataAccessRequestTemplate

Create data access workflow

Create or update a data access workflow:

PUT https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/dataaccess/workflows/{workflowId}

The workflow request body is a large JSON directed acyclic graph (DAG) that defines multi-stage approvals including:

DataSubscriptionWebhook: subscription trigger
DataAccessRequestSubmitted: entry trigger
Manager approval stage
Privacy / compliance approval stage
Approver chain stages
Approve / Reject terminal actions

Apply policy sets to data product

Apply policy sets to a data product to govern access:

PUT https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/dataaccess/dataProducts/{dataProductId}/policySets/applied?api-version=2023-10-01-preview

Request body:

{
  "policies": {
    "approvers": [
      {
        "identityType": "User",
        "objectId": "<userObjectId>",
        "tenantId": "<tenantId>"
      }
    ],
    "permittedUseCases": [
      {
        "title": "Assessing Fit",
        "description": "Use to determine if data is useful"
      },
      {
        "title": "Critical Reporting",
        "description": "Use to create high quality reports"
      },
      {
        "title": "Directional Insights",
        "description": "Use to gather directional insights"
      }
    ],
    "managerApprovalRequired": false,
    "privacyComplianceApprovalRequired": false,
    "dataCopyPermitted": false,
    "attestations": [],
    "skipWorkflow": false,
    "maximumAccessDuration": {
      "durationType": "Years",
      "length": 1
    }
  }
}

List workflows

List the data access workflows:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/dataaccess/workflows

Get approvals

Retrieve pending data access approvals:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/dataaccess/approvals?approvalStatus=Pending&api-version=2023-10-01-preview

Get workflow runs

Retrieve the data access workflow runs:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/dataaccess/workflowRuns?ignoreActionStatuses=true&api-version=2023-10-01-preview

9. Data Quality

Create bulk asset metadata

Create bulk asset metadata for data quality:

PUT https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/quality/bulk-asset-metadata

Note

The request body references an external JSON file (BCDR-DQ-Create Metadata.json). Contact your support representative for the complete payload.

Get bulk asset metadata

Retrieve the bulk asset metadata:

GET https://<accountName>.purview.azure.com/datagovernance/quality/bulk-asset-metadata

Disaster recovery and migration best practices for Microsoft Purview data governance (classic).

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Last updated on 2026-06-29

Disaster recovery for Unified Catalog (manual)

Features covered

BCDR workflow

Step 1. Create an Enterprise tier account

Step 2. Request Classic Purview provisioning in a secondary region

Step 3. Create a Classic Purview account

Step 4. Copy data from the Enterprise account to the Classic account

Step 5. Manage GUIDs during backup

Step 6. Validate the secondary account

Step 7. Fail over during a disaster recovery (DR) event

API details

1. Account and provisioning

Get current policies

2. Governance domains

Create governance domain

Get governance domains

3. Data products

Create data product

Get data products

4. Glossary terms

Create term

Get terms

5. Critical data elements (CDE)

Create critical data element

Get critical data elements

6. Data assets

Create data asset

Get data assets

7. Data estate health

CDMC control template

Create or update analytics schedule

Get analytics schedule

8. Data access

Get default access request template

Create data access workflow

Apply policy sets to data product

List workflows

Get approvals

Get workflow runs

9. Data Quality

Create bulk asset metadata

Get bulk asset metadata

Related content

Feedback

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