The text discusses the challenges of managing data in modern organizations, where data generation outpaces indexing capabilities. Data catalogs are introduced as a solution to unify orchestration and data cataloging, providing a searchable and centralized view of data assets. A built-in catalog integrated into the orchestration platform gives data platform engineers a serious advantage, allowing them to quickly search for datasets, access definitions, transformations, and lineage with real-time metadata, reducing tool fatigue, and fostering collaboration among teams. The text highlights the benefits of using software-defined assets as the source of truth for catalogs, providing versioned and collaborative code, supporting automation, flexibility, and avoiding redundant work. It also emphasizes the importance of breaking silos and onboarding new team members faster with a unified view of data. Finally, it showcases Dagster's capabilities in simplifying data management with a built-in catalog, eliminating the need for standalone tools, and providing real-time accuracy, streamlined management, enhanced visibility, and reduced overhead.