Data is critical to how a company works and performs. Businesses need to make sense of data and discover meaning in the noise generated by the many systems and technologies. Data plays a central role in this regard. Data is meaningless on its own; businesses require a strong strategy, governance, and data management model to use all types of data for practical and efficient usage across supply chains, employee networks, customer and partner ecosystems, and much more. In this post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about data management as well as some best practices for dealing with it.

What is Data Management?

Data management is the discipline of gathering, storing, and using data in a secure, efficient, and cost-effective manner. The purpose of data management is to assist individuals and organizations in optimizing data use within the constraints of policies and laws so that they can make choices and take actions that maximize the benefits of the company. As firms increasingly rely on intangible assets to produce value, a strong data management strategy is more vital than ever.

In an organization, managing digital data entails a wide variety of duties, rules, processes, and practices. The task of data management encompasses a wide range of issues, such as:

• Create, read, and update data from a variety of data tiers.
• Data should be stored in several clouds as well as on-premises.
• High availability and catastrophe recovery are provided.
• Data may be used in a rising number of apps, analytics, and algorithms.
• Ensure the privacy and security of your data.
• Data should be archived and destroyed in line with retention periods and regulatory obligations.

A formal data management plan covers user and administrator behavior, the capabilities of data management technology, the demands of legal obligations, and the organization’s desire to derive value from its data.

Why Is Data Management Important?

Data management is a critical first step in implementing efficient data analysis at scale, which leads to vital insights that provide value to your consumers while improving your bottom line. People throughout an organization can identify and access credible data for their queries thanks to excellent data management. Some of the advantages of a good data management solution are as follows:

Visibility

Data management helps boost the visibility of your organization’s data assets, making it simpler for individuals to access the correct data for their research quickly and confidently. Data visibility enables your company to be more organized and efficient by helping staff to discover the information they need to execute their tasks more effectively.

Reliability

By establishing procedures and regulations for data usage and increasing trust in the data being used to make choices across your business, data management helps to reduce possible mistakes. Companies can adapt to customer requirements, and market changes more effectively if they have trustworthy, up-to-date data.

Security

With authentication and encryption solutions, data management protects your company and its employees from data losses, thefts, and breaches. Strong data security guarantees that critical corporate information is backed up and retrievable in the event that the primary source fails. Furthermore, security becomes increasingly critical if your data contains personally identifiable information that must be properly maintained in order to comply with consumer protection legislation.

Scalability

Data management enables companies to expand data usage by using repeatable procedures to keep data and metadata up to date. When procedures are simple to replicate, your company may minimize the extra expenditures of duplication, such as personnel completing the same research over and again or re-running costly queries.

7 Types of Data Management

Data management can fall under one or more of the following types:

Master data management

Master data management (MDM) is the process of ensuring that an organization always works with a single version of current, trustworthy information and bases business decisions on it. Consuming data from all of your data sources and presenting it as a single consistent, dependable source, as well as replicating data into other systems, necessitates the use of the proper technologies.

Data stewardship

A data steward does not create information management rules; rather, he or she implements and enforces them throughout the company. A data steward, as the name indicates, keeps an eye on business data gathering and movement policies, ensuring that best practices are followed, and regulations are followed.

Data quality management

Suppose a data steward is like a digital sheriff, a data quality manager may be his court clerk. Quality management is in charge of searching through acquired data to look for underlying issues such as duplicate entries, conflicting versions, and so on. Data quality managers provide assistance to the designated data management system.

Data security 

Security is one of the most critical components of data management nowadays. Despite the fact that emerging practices such as DevSecOps incorporate security considerations at every level of application development and data exchange, security professionals are still tasked with encryption management, preventing unauthorized access, guarding against accidental movement or deletion, and other frontline concerns.

Data governance

Data governance establishes the rules for an enterprise’s information state. A data governance framework is similar to a constitution in that it lays out principles for the input, flow, and protection of institutional information. Data governors supervise a network of stewards, quality management experts, security teams, and other people and data management processes in the pursuit of a governance policy that supports a master data management strategy.

Big data management

Big data is a catch-all term for acquiring, analyzing, and utilizing vast volumes of digital data to enhance operations. In general, this field of data management specializes in the input, integrity, and storage of massive amounts of raw data that other management teams use to enhance operations and security or generate business intelligence.

Data warehousing 

Information is the foundation of modern business. The sheer volume of data poses an obvious challenge: what do we do with all of these blocks? Data warehouse management supplies and manages the physical and/or cloud-based infrastructure required to gather raw data and analyze it thoroughly in order to provide business insights.

The specific demands of every data management organization may need a combination of any or all of these techniques. Familiarity with management areas gives data managers the knowledge they need to create solutions that are tailored to their specific contexts.

Best Practices for Successful Data Management

Data management is an important business driver that ensures data is obtained, verified, stored, and safeguarded in a consistent manner. It is critical to establish and implement the appropriate processes so that end users may be satisfied that their data is trustworthy, accessible, and up to date. Here are seven recommended practices for your organization to consider in order to ensure that your data is managed as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Build strong file naming and cataloging conventions

You must be able to locate data if you intend to use it. If you can’t control it, you can’t measure it. Create a user- and future-friendly reporting or file system with descriptive, standardized file names that are easy to identify and file formats that allow users to search and discover data sets with long-term access in mind.

• A typical format for listing dates is YYYY-MM-DD or YYYYMMDD.
• It is recommended to use a Unix timestamp or a defined 24-hour format, such as HH:MM:SS when listing times. If your organization is national or even worldwide, consumers may take note of where the information they need is coming from and search for it by time zone.

Carefully consider metadata for data sets.

Metadata is essentially descriptive information about the data you’re using. It should provide information about the data’s content, structure, and rights so that it can be found and used in the future. You can’t rely on being able to use your data years down the road if you don’t have this exact information that is searchable and discoverable.

Catalog items such as:

• Data author
• What data this set contains
• Descriptions of data fields
• When/Where was the data created
• Why was the data created and how

This data will then assist you in creating and comprehending a data lineage as the data moves to follow it from its origin to its destination. This is also useful for mapping and recording data connections. The first step in developing a solid data governance process is to collect metadata that informs a safe data lineage.

Data Storage

Storage strategies are a crucial part of your workflow if you ever want to be able to retrieve the data you’re generating. Find a data backup and preservation strategy that works for your company. A solution that works for a large organization may not be suited for the demands of a small project, so consider your requirements carefully.

A variety of storage locations to consider:

• Desktops/laptops
• External hard drives
• Networked drives
• Cloud storage
• Optical storage
• Flash drives

The 3-2-1 methodology

The 3-2-1 approach is a basic and widely used storage strategy. This methodology suggests the following recommendations: 3: Keep three copies of your data, 2: use two different sorts of storage systems, and 1: keep one of them offsite. Without being unduly redundant or overly difficult, this strategy provides smart access. It ensures that there is always a duplicate available in case one kind or place is lost or destroyed.

Documentation

We can’t ignore documentation when it comes to data management best practices. It’s generally a good idea to provide numerous levels of documentation that explain why the data exists and how it should be used.

Levels of documentation:

• Project-level documentation.
• File-level software documentation. (Include the program version so that if future users use a different version, they can work through any discrepancies and software difficulties that may arise)
• Context documentation (it is essential to give any context to the project, why it was created, if hypotheses were trying to be proved or disproved, etc.)

Commitment to data culture

Making sure that your department or company’s leadership promotes data experimentation and analytics is part of committing to data culture. This is important when leadership and strategy are necessary, as well as when a money or time commitment is required to ensure that adequate training is given and received. Furthermore, having leadership sponsorship as well as lateral buy-in will allow for improved data communication throughout your organization’s teams.

Data quality trust in security and privacy

Creating a culture dedicated to data quality necessitates a commitment to creating a safe environment with strict privacy requirements. When you are attempting to offer secure data for internal communications and planning or when you are working to develop a relationship of trust with a client that you are safeguarding the privacy of their data and information, security matters.

Management mechanisms must be in place to demonstrate that your networks are safe and that your personnel understands the importance of data privacy. Data security has been acknowledged as one of the most important decision-making elements in today’s digital market when firms and consumers make purchasing decisions. One violation of data privacy is one too many. Plan ahead of time.

Invest in quality data-management software.

When considering these best practices in tandem, it is advised, if not needed, to invest in high-quality data-management software. Organizing all of your data into a manageable, functional business tool can assist you in finding the information you want. Then you may construct the appropriate data sets and data-extract schedule for your business requirements. Data management software will work with both internal and external data assets to help you create the optimal governance strategy for your organization.

Final words

If your company doesn’t have the expertise to execute your app development project in-house, it’s best to find a service provider to help you. 

CMC Global is among the top three IT outsourcing services providers in Vietnam. We operate a large certified team of developers, providing a wide variety of stacks to help you build your application in the most cost-effective way and in the least amount of time. 

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