Which Azure service is specifically designed for data governance?

Azure Purview is specifically designed for data governance, making it the strongest choice among the options provided. It serves as a unified data governance solution that enables organizations to manage their data assets effectively. Azure Purview allows users to automatically discover and catalog data across various sources, facilitating an understanding of their data landscape. It supports data classification, lineage tracking, and creating a data catalog that can help data stewards and compliance teams ensure data governance policies are adhered to.

This service plays a crucial role in enabling organizations to maintain a clear view of their data inventory, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, and enhance data transparency across the organization. The focus on data governance allows businesses to manage risks associated with data usage, access, and security more effectively.

In contrast, Azure Data Factory is primarily an ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and data integration service, Azure Data Lake Storage serves as a storage solution optimized for big data analytics, and Azure Synapse Analytics provides data warehousing and analysis capabilities. While these services contribute to the broader data ecosystem, they do not specialize in data governance in the same way Azure Purview does.