There’s no end to the deluge of data. Now that businesses are increasingly adopting a multicloud technology strategy, implementing data governance is growing in importance. There are many challenges to controlling data in multicloud:
• Data is created in multiple places. Data definitions are harder to keep consistent.
• Data moves between multiple clouds. Ensuring usage is authorized is difficult, and as data is transformed on each platform, inconsistencies may get introduced.
• Self-service allows users to create new systems. Sensitive data may be created and used without any awareness of the compliance team.
• Self-service means data projects may not align with business priorities.
Build a Data Governance Strategy in the Cloud
To ensure successful data governance in the cloud, the business must know:
• The value of its data. You need to know what data you have and how the business can use it. Data discovery is critical when data is hidden in the cloud.
• The location of its data. You need to know where data resides, where it is transferred, and where it is used.
• The risk of data. You need to know which data sets contain sensitive intellectual property or confidential customer data and make sure those data sets are adequately protected.
• The completeness and correctness of its data. Data that isn’t accurate presents a big risk to decision-making and processing.
Ensuring data is managed and used properly requires ensuring data is treated consistently across the cloud. Security policies and metadata definitions need to be integral parts of the data deployment to ensure consistency is maintained. Data transfers need to be tracked. Data needs to be tracked every time a copy is made, too.
In addition to tracking data usage, there need to be policies defining what data usage is allowed. In particular, integration policies should specify how data may be combined, ensure that the sensitivity of new data sets reflect the sensitivity of all the inputs, and keep the meaning of data consistent. Policies also need to dictate how data is transformed and whether inputs are preserved or deleted.
Along with governance policies, data security measures, such as access controls, need to be applied and enforced.
Using the right tools makes applying data governance to data in the cloud easier. Veritas Information Studio connects to Amazon, Google, Azure, and Office 365 to provide a clear visualization of where data resides; classification rules automatically tag sensitive data to allow it to be protected appropriately. Enterprise Vault for Office 365 provides third-party archiving of important emails and other Office data, eliminating the dependency on Office 365 for discovery and archival services. VAST IT Services supports the entire suite of Veritas products. Contact us to learn more about how to use Veritas’ tools to gain visibility and apply data governance to all your data in the cloud.
