Which Primary Capabilities Should Data Management Solutions Have?

Data management is different for every business.

A few things virtually all organizations that gather a large amount of data struggle with include:

• Keeping it clean
• Retaining visibility of all the files
• Ensuring that the data is globally compliant
• Securing personally identifiable information within the infrastructure

To retain an overview of data and keep it safe from hacking, companies should choose a data management solution that automates time-consuming processes such as the analysis and categorization of versatile files.

What are other primary capabilities a data management solution should have in its arsenal?

Collection, Analysis, and Classification of Data

Any data management solution you choose for your business should automate and repeat these processes:

• Gathering — collecting all files and documents in a single place
• Analysis of data — determining if documents are compromised or contain errors
• Classification — separating sensitive from regular data, differentiating them based on types

Unifying collected data is the first step in gaining control over important documents. This includes consolidation of the files — storing them in a single place.

Consolidation allows professionals within the company to combine the data and use their cleaned-up version.

Analysis of the versatile files within the company’s ecosystem is a process that continually evaluates the data to make sure it’s safe, clean, and error-free.

Knowing where your data is at all times, what kind of files are kept within the infrastructure, and who has access to it is important for keeping this data secure in the long run.

Top data management solutions continually repeat these processes and present the results in a single dashboard.

Nowadays, most solutions come with a user-friendly interface. Even employees that are not tech-savvy or even highly analytical can use and understand this resource and refer to it to gain valuable insights.

Keeping Data Clean

Data enters the network from different sources. It’s also saved in versatile formats. Types are not the same either — files are saved as structured, unstructured, and semi-structured.

To ensure the high quality of the data, management tools also have cleaning functionality. Here, the automated tools seek documents riddled with errors, saved in the wrong format, not consistent, incomplete, or expendable.

Processes such as assessment of the quality of data and profiling of the information are also integral for keeping the high quality of the data.

Data profiling determines whether the data is at risk.

Analyzing whether the data adheres to quality rules concludes whether the files meet the standards the teams set for the specific kind of documents.

Cleaning is an important process that the data has to go through before it’s analyzed because this step improves the accuracy of analytics.

As a result, IT professionals know they have precise insights into the data. Cleaning ensures that the documents they further use within the company aren’t compromised or contain mistakes.

Meeting Data Compliance Via Automation

For companies that store sensitive user information, adhering to data compliance policies is necessary to avoid legal repercussions. Besides being a legal obligation, ensuring data compliance is an integral part of preventing breaches for any company.

Meeting compliance regulations can get complex for businesses that operate globally and need to safeguard scientific data based on the laws of other countries.

Since there are now more regulations to consider than ever before, it’s getting more and more difficult to navigate compliance — especially for businesses with limited resources or those just starting.

Some of the standards that companies need to meet are:

• Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) — regards a company’s financials
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) — to protect US consumers
• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — for confidential data collection and processing and transparency
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — for keeping medical and health care records safe

These are only some of the laws that govern data privacy and guard users’ private data from possible theft and misuse.

Modern data management solutions rely on automation to achieve compliance across multiple platforms that operate globally. Such tools are cost-effective, and they can keep up with a growing company’s needs.

Protecting Data From Malicious Intruders

Regardless of size, every company is up against persistent cyber issues that can lead to data breaches. The fact is most attackers are interested in sensitive documents.

Analytics from data management tools paired with insights from threat detection security solutions provide the context that security analysts need to protect the company.

Attacks might start with highly technical hacking of the network. A bad actor could buy leaked employee credentials on hacking forums. Or, as it happens in most data breach cases, it can all start with a seemingly innocent but costly phishing email.

Regardless of how they gain initial access, unauthorized entrance to the company’s systems (either via phishing or stolen password) can grant access to important documents within the company to opportunist criminals.

This is a major concern for businesses that store a lot of personal user, corporate, and employee data within their infrastructure or cloud.

What roles does a proper data management solution have in preventing security incidents that lead to data that is altered, stolen, or leaked?

Data management solutions let the security teams know where the sensitive data is at all times and which data is a malicious hacker trying to change, delete, copy, or download.

The Bottom Line

Today, companies have more data than ever at their disposal. They store and collect personally identifiable data from their users and teams.

At the same time, they face more cyber threats than ever before — most of them attempting to compromise data.

Therefore, the management of data has become a challenging process.

The data management solution you choose should help you automate processes such as data analysis, increasing the quality of the data, facilitating the meeting of compliance standards, and securing them from malicious intruders.

Essentially, it should make the lives of IT teams easier and the data that the business stores safer.