FDST-BDS study guide
FDST-BDS · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
FDST-BDS is a professional certification for data practitioners who want to demonstrate breadth across the full data management lifecycle rather than depth in a single tool. It suits data stewards, data architects, analytics engineers, BI developers, and data quality or governance leads who already work with data platforms and need a credential that maps to recognised data management practice areas. The FDST-BDS study guide has 8 sections and about 2,265 words.
01Data Governance and Stewardship
Data governance is the decision-rights and accountability system for data; stewardship is the day-to-day execution of those decisions. The exam tests operating models, role design, policy lifecycle, escalation, and how governance is measured rather than merely charted.
309 words, about 2 min02Data Architecture and Modeling
Data architecture translates business strategy into integrated data structures, flows, and standards. Modeling turns those structures into conceptual, logical, and physical designs.
294 words, about 1 min03Data Quality Management
Data quality management defines fitness for purpose, measures it, finds root causes, and sustains remediation. The exam tests quality dimensions, profiling, rule design, issue triage, and how quality is governed and reported.
303 words, about 2 min04Data Integration and Interoperability
Data integration moves and combines data across systems; interoperability ensures those exchanges are understood and usable. The exam tests integration patterns, contracts, latency, error handling, and canonical data design.
277 words, about 1 min05Data Security and Privacy
Data security protects confidentiality, integrity, and availability; privacy governs lawful and responsible use of personal data. The exam tests classification, access control, protection techniques, retention, and privacy-by-design.
272 words, about 1 min06Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
Data warehousing integrates subject-oriented, time-variant data for analysis; business intelligence turns it into governed reporting and decisions. The exam tests dimensional design, grain, history, conformed dimensions, semantic layers, and BI delivery.
273 words, about 1 min07Metadata and Master Data Management
Metadata describes data’s meaning, structure, lineage, and usage; master data is the shared, authoritative data about core entities. The exam tests metadata types, catalog and lineage use, MDM styles, match/merge, and golden-record governance.
273 words, about 1 min08Data Analytics and Reporting
Data analytics and reporting convert data into insight and decisions. The exam tests analytical method selection, metric and report design, validation, reproducibility, and the guardrails around self-service analytics.
264 words, about 1 min