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Community Case Study
inDrive Scales Global Data Governance with OpenMetadata
100+
AWS-hosted databases tracked and governed
50+
Analytics teams empowered to self-serve from a unified metadata platform
inDrive is the second most downloaded ride-hailing app globally, offering services from passenger transport to freight delivery. As its platform expanded, data multiplied across 100+ AWS-hosted databases and multiple regions, with analytics teams creating critical assets without centralized governance. To gain control, the data observability and governance team implemented OpenMetadata, creating a unified, automated, and trusted metadata foundation. This enabled faster discovery, stronger compliance, and improved analytics for global teams.
Industry
Transportation
Technologies
AWS, BigQuery, dbt, Tableau, Kafka, Airflow
"OpenMetadata gives us the unified visibility into data governance we need today, giving us a clear path to automate and innovate for tomorrow."
Liubov Pasechnik
Senior Data Steward (Data Governance) at inDrive
Growing Data Complexity Created Urgent Governance Needs
As inDrive’s platform scaled, so did the sprawl of data sources, tools, and teams producing new assets. The microservices architecture introduced flexibility but also fragmented visibility, making it harder to find, trust, and govern data at the pace the business required.
The governance and observability team faced challenges including:
Distributed and siloed data
Data was spread across services, departments, and geographies, making discovery slow and error-prone.
Limited lineage visibility
Tracing flows from source systems to Tableau dashboards was complex and often manual.
Glossary inconsistency
No single source of truth for hundreds of critical business metrics.
Reactive QA and incident management
Ingestion issues were discovered manually via Airflow checks.
Compliance risk
Personally identifiable information needed consistent tagging to meet GDPR and other privacy requirements.
The team needed a solution to centralize metadata, automate governance, and reduce operational bottlenecks while supporting rapid global growth.
An Open Source Foundation for Unified Discovery, Observability, and Governance
inDrive chose OpenMetadata to serve as the single metadata layer. Its open source architecture allowed full customization and integration with existing infrastructure.
Full metadata coverage
Automated ingestion from dbt, BigQuery, raw SQL, and Tableau, unifying lineage into a single view.
Sensitive data tagging
Internal taxonomy automatically identifies combinations of sensitive attributes (e.g., email + passport ID).
Business glossary
Centralized source of truth linking metrics to technical lineage for BI, product analytics, and ESG reporting.
Scalable deployment
Three OpenMetadata instances support production and testing environments.
Cleaner Data, Stronger Governance, and Faster Decision-Making
The adoption of OpenMetadata has transformed inDrive’s metadata from a scattered, inconsistent set of records into a living, trusted resource. Discovery is faster, governance is proactive, and compliance processes are embedded into daily workflows rather than handled as afterthoughts.
With OpenMetadata in place, inDrive has:
Streamlined metadata management
Centralized metadata for 100+ AWS-hosted databases, creating a trusted foundation for discovery and governance.
Accelerated analysis
Accelerated analysis by enabling analysts to quickly find and trust the right datasets.
Lower Risk
Reduced compliance risk through automated personal data tagging.
More reach
Extended governance reach with plans to add lineage for ETL and streaming data, including Kafka.
With a unified metadata foundation in place, inDrive can now manage sensitive data with confidence while empowering teams to innovate faster. The ability to quickly discover, classify, and trust their data is helping inDrive accelerate product development, meet compliance requirements across markets, and deliver better, safer experiences for millions of riders and drivers worldwide. As the company continues to expand into new geographies and services, this strong data governance backbone ensures they can scale responsibly to keep trust, transparency, and agility at the heart of their global operations.
