Use Actian MCP Server for Building the Contextual Foundation for Agentic AI

What is Actian MCP Server?

The Actian MCP Server is a secure bridge that connects AI tools (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, and Microsoft Copilot Studio) directly to the trusted real-time metadata in your Actian Data Intelligence Platform. Built on the open Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard and powered by a native knowledge graph, it transforms your data catalog from a passive repository into an active intelligence partner. Your AI assistants can now query your data catalog conversationally, understand business terminology, and map data relationships–eliminating guesswork, hallucinations, and productivity-killing context switching.

What Can You Do With Actian MCP?

With the Actian MCP Server, you can:

• Get Instant Glossary Definitions: Ask your AI assistant, “What do we mean by billable utilization?” and receive the official approved definition from your organization’s glossary, ensuring standardized language across all AI workflows and eliminating ambiguity.
• Locate Context-Relevant Data Assets: Bridge the gap between business concepts and physical data. Ask “Where is our Customer data?” or “Show me all datasets related to BCBS239 compliance,” and immediately discover not only the datasets, but also related assets.
• Understand Data Relationships: Visualize the complete “family tree” of any dataset, including its specific fields, and relational dependencies. All of this happens without manually reverse-engineering schemas or querying the data model.
• Discover Related Concepts: Perform AI-powered semantic searches that uncover conceptually similar business terms you didn’t know to look for. Search for “revenue” and discover related ideas like “income,” “sales,” “gross profit,” and “billing”. Revealing hidden connections between concepts even when they don’t share the same keywords.

All of this happens directly within your conversational workflow, maintaining your momentum and eliminating frustrating tab-switching.

Why Do You Need the Actian MCP Server?

AI agents can’t perform reliably without understanding the unique context of your data. Without the foundational metadata context, AI tools resort to guesswork, hallucinate, or use incorrect datasets–undermining trust and derailing AI initiatives.

The Core Problem: Your AI assistants or custom AI agents are working blind. They don’t know your organization’s specific definitions for business terms, which datasets are certified and trusted, or how your data assets connect to each other. This leads to:

• Constant context-switching for data analysts and business users who jump between AI assistants and the data catalog, killing momentum and workflow efficiency.
• Hallucinated responses based on generic training data rather than your actual data landscape.
• Wasted time looking for the right datasets or clarifying terminology.
• Analysis errors from using incorrect or outdated data sources.
• Lost productivity switching between AI tools and data catalogs.

The Actian Solution: The Actian MCP Server transforms your passive data catalog into an active, queryable knowledge base that grounds AI in reality. By connecting AI assistants to your knowledge graph-native data catalog, you ensure every AI-generated insight is grounded in trusted, contextually accurate, and governed information delivered right where the work happens.

How Does the Actian MCP Server Work?

The Actian MCP Server operates as a secure intermediary using two foundational technologies:

1. Knowledge Graph: Unlike traditional catalogs that rely on relational databases, forcing complex joins just to see how data connects, the Actian Data Intelligence Platform is built from the ground up on a native knowledge graph. The knowledge graph stores relationships as a core part of the data itself, making it incredibly fast and intuitive to understand the links between business terms, metrics, and underlying tables. This architecture delivers superior contextual accuracy in understanding data relationships and semantic meanings.
2. MCP Protocol: The MCP Server acts as a secure bridge based on the open Model Context Protocol standard, connecting your AI tools to your data catalog and exposing the following specialized tools as callable functions:
   1. find_glossary_definition – Retrieves official business term definitions from your organization’s business glossary.
   2. get_glossary_implementations – Locates physical data assets linked to business concepts. 
   3. get_dataset_data_model – Maps dataset relationships, dependencies, and dimensional models by identifying relational dependencies and foreign key references.
   4. semantic_search_glossary – Performs semantic search across the business glossary, returning conceptually related terms based on meaning and context rather than exact keyword matching. 

The Actian workflow follows these six steps:

1. You ask your AI assistant a data-related question in your natural conversation.
2. The AI assistant recognizes it needs organizational context and calls the appropriate MCP Server tool.
3. The MCP Server queries Actian’s knowledge graph-powered data catalog.
4. The knowledge graph quickly traverses relationships and semantic connections to find contextually relevant information.
5. The MCP Server returns authoritative metadata to your AI assistant.
6. Your AI formulates an accurate, grounded response. All of this happens securely within your existing workflow.

How Does Actian MCP Server Enable Conversational Intelligence?

Actian MCP Server fundamentally transforms how you interact with enterprise metadata, from technical lookup tasks to natural conversations, with these key advantages:

• Eliminate Context-Switching: Productivity in data analysis is all about momentum. Imagine a financial analyst building a regulatory report. In their Claude (Cursor, Windsurf, or Microsoft Copilot Studio) conversation, they can ask “Show me all datasets related to BCB 239 compliance.” The MCP server instantly fetches the information from the catalog and presents it in the chat. No new tabs, no lost trains of thought, no disruptive friction. Everything is available where you’re already working.
• Get a True Semantic Understanding: While other catalogs perform basic keyword searches, the Actian MCP Server leverages the knowledge graph for genuine semantic search. When you search revenue, you don’t just get results for revenue, you get conceptually related terms like income, sales, gross profit, and billing because the knowledge graph understands the meaning and relationship between these concepts, not just the words themselves. This ensures you discover the full context of business vocabulary, uncovering critical connections you might otherwise miss.
• Maintain a Conversational State With Real-Time Context: Instead of navigating complex catalog interfaces or writing SQL queries, simply ask questions like: “What’s our definition of active customer?” or “Show me how the sales table connects to our revenue data.” The MCP Server provides AI tools with the updated context of new definitions, datasets, and relationships, ensuring responses are current and accurate.

Which Actian Features are Enabled by Actian MCP Server Support?

The Actian MCP Server unlocks conversational access to key capabilities of the Actian Data Intelligence Platform:

• Business Glossary With Semantic Search: Query official definitions and business terminology directly through your AI assistant. The semantic search capability goes beyond simple keyword matching to interpret intent and contextual meaning, providing more relevant and precise results that match what you’re truly seeking.
• Data Catalog Discovery: Locate certified, trusted datasets by asking business questions rather than searching through technical schemas. Ask “What datasets contain compliance or regulatory information?” and immediately get relevant tables without switching tools.
• Knowledge Graph Relationships: Leverage Actian’s native knowledge graph architecture to understand complex data lineage, dependencies, and semantic connections instantly. The knowledge graph foundation is what sets Actian apart from other platforms, delivering superior accuracy in relational and dimensional model discovery.
• Data Model Reconstruction: Identify relational dependencies for any dataset by finding all datasets where it serves as a foreign key reference, enabling reconstruction of dimensional models and data architecture patterns. Query the “orders” table and automatically discover that it connects to “customers,” “products,” and “shipping,” tables, understanding the full data model for e-commerce analytics without manual schema exploration.

How Do I Get Started With Actian MCP Server With Your AI Assistant?

Deploying a remote connection to the Actian MCP Server with your AI assistant (in this example, Claude) is a quick two-step process:  

1. Set up remote authentication with your Actian Data Intelligence Platform
2. Set up Claude Desktop and connect with Actian MCP

Once ready, the Actian MCP Server provides a set of tools that enables AI agents to work directly with the metadata in the Actian Data Intelligence Platform.

Ready to Give Your AI Assistants a Strong Contextual Foundation With Actian MCP Server?

Ultimately, shifting from experimental AI to widespread enterprise adoption depends on establishing trust and reliable outcomes. Actian MCP Server provides this foundation by linking your AI agents to your trusted, governed data, which helps prevent hallucinations and fosters confidence through context-aware results. 

This approach not only allows you to scale your Agentic AI projects with certainty but also aligns with open standards, ensuring your investment remains future-proof.

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