The Visual8

Data Management is a topic storage admins rightfully worry about. An ever increasing collection of content leads to expensive ways to store it. And there is seldom a policy to automatically delete those files.

All data must be preserved.

Because you never know when you need it. Or so the logic goes.

Tools and techniques offer a means to lower the cost to serve that data. In the world of IT, this data management is about when the file was updated, who accessed it last, and does the new request for that data adhere to the security standards.

This is a story of data management as a focus on the copper side of the coin.

It is quite common for countries to use an aluminum-nickel alloy for their coins. The value is measured in the impression on the stamped coin, not the metal that makes it.

To a storage admin, they don’t see the face of the coin. Their world is to manage access to the “copper”. To store the copper efficiently. To quicken access to the frequently requested coins. And most importantly, to ensure that those asking, have an authentic right to access.

The language of this domain is about protocols, availability zones, and access control lists (ACL).

Storage administrators act as custodians of the materiality of the coins, not the currency.

Unfortunately, retention drives up cost because of space and energy needed to keep those files.

Storage admins don’t know how the data relates back to a project or key initiative. That’s not their responsibility. They enable data producers produce and data consumers to consume.

To these “data professionals” the physicality of the data matters not.

They want what they want, when they want, in the way they want it.

Data professionals are focused on the currency of the coin.

Their focus is on the face of the coin because that drives value to the business. Their focus is on the outcome that the data can buy.

Concerns around security fall toward compliance to regulatory policies like PII, HIPPA, DORA, and GPDR. Did we reveal something in the content of the file unintentionally even when access to the file was permissible?

The language of this realm is about schemas, accessibility, and quality.

Retention opens the door to longitudinal analysis for insights over the long run.

Data professionals don’t care about the physicality of the data. Or about the space and energy to hold assets in the vault.

This presents an opportunity to consider both sides of coin.

Each stakeholder should consider their partners in the relationship.

Copper-minded professionals ought to comprehend what is important to the currency-minded. They should remember that their storage budgets are the result of the needs for the currency-minded.

And the currency-minded must respect that challenges for the copper-minded. They should think about how limited resources are to store and serve the data they treasure.

The key to make this happen is with metadata tags.

Metadata could capture the cost and usefulness of the same data object.

Machine Learning could programmatically create those tags. Humans could teach the Machine Learning to be better in the tagging. Or to append the existing tags.

The rise of AI excites our imagination in making this real.

Data Management vendors from the storage space are waking up to the possibilities. They see how they could add value in the flow of data. They see how chain of custody of data in pipeline needs to be protected. They hunger to make data more findable, better organized, and enriched with context.

Data Management vendors from the data catalog / data analytics space should open their imagination. By adopting the best practices from storage administrators, the price of retention could be built into the catalog. Techniques like indices or heat maps free up the resources that serve the data.

When we act together, we win together.

Collaboration across these domains is what is needed. To close the loop between supply and demand. To amplify the Return on Investment (ROI), but lowering the Investment (cost of storage) and upping the Return (insight extraction from data).

Those vendors that reach across the isle are better positioned to increase their relevance. And professionals on both sides of the coin who realize that they exist in symbiotic relationship are much more durable.

Isn’t that what an alloy is all about anyway?