What Is Data Governance
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Data Governance is the set of principles and procedures an organization uses to manage data during its life cycle. More specifically, data governance encompasses all that is done to ensure data is private, secure, accurate, available, and usable. The data life cycle may include the data’s acquisition, use, and disposal phases. Part of a data governance framework is defining what data means to an organization, and whether that organization’s data is in the form of hard copy, digital, or cloud-based assets.
Data governance means setting internal data policies that underpin how data is collected, stored, transformed, and disposed of. Internal data policies also outline which members inside or outside (clients) of an organization are granted access to which kinds of data. In some cases, not all an organization’s data assets are managed under its internal data governance policies. However, industry associations, governments, and stakeholders also impose external policies to ensure an organization’s data is managed to public standards.
What are the Benefits of Effective Data Governance?
An effective data governance approach will allow an organization’s data assets to serve the needs of both IT and business analytics teams. The approach must be collaborative, procedural, and ongoing so organizations can reveal and track data, understand the data’s power within the correct context(s) and maximize its quality, value, and security. Implementing an effective data governance plan is beneficial to any organization, primarily because of these important drivers, among others:
Faster, more successful decision-making
Members throughout an organization gain access to the data necessary to reach customers, service their needs, improve products, and capture new revenue opportunities. External and internal data policies are also plentiful. Clear data governance policies and practices help your organization avoid risks associated with noncompliance.
Improved data quality and continuity
Standardization and consistency of data are improved with effective data governance. A primary purpose of data governance is understanding how to locate data and how it is stored. When done well, governance enables a clear view of all data assets. Assigning data access permissions allows your organization to determine who is responsible for each piece of data.
Manage risks more effectively
Data breach attempts happen daily at large organizations. Strong data governance principles can reduce the incidence of sensitive data leaks to outside entities and unauthorized insiders. Under an effective data governance approach, with specifically defined data permissions, internal personnel and external clients can access more data without violating confidentiality. The sum effect of risk management under data governance is that users feel more comfortable trusting your business with their sensitive information.
Cloud-based data governance
Many companies are adopting cloud technology. As sensitive data assets transition to a cloud-reliant framework, people are starting to question how data governance will be impacted. Large corporations are questioning whether:
- Their sensitive data will be safe: Mismanagement of cloud-stored data has caused a global stir before. For example, during the 2018 Facebook breach and 2014 Apple Cloud leaks, among others. Naturally, businesses and consumers are concerned about storing data in the public cloud. This is particularly important because many companies can only manage governance within their on-premises systems, while many of these same companies simultaneously trust external cloud providers with their sensitive client data. External cloud providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Salesforce all have their own internal governance policies which may not directly align with the organizations using their services. This possible mismatch between how organizations and cloud providers use governance to protect against exposure or theft causes friction and ultimately determines which companies are selected by consumers.
- The organization will have data control and transparency: To offer clients control over their data, leading cloud vendors often provide integrated tools for metadata cataloging, assessment, data quality, security, information security, and access control management. When public cloud providers assist with data governance, companies and customers gain an improved experience and are more likely to trust external platforms with their data.
- Cloud Vendors will align with regulations: Organizations, data stewards, and enterprise compliance officers must feel assured that their chosen cloud provider will align with internal and external data governance regulations and standards. Cloud providers impart control and transparency to organizations and clients through cloud-integrated compliance tools like Cavirin, CloudGuard Dome9, and Lacework.
Data Governance Products, Services, and Tools
Immuta
Immuta was founded in 2015 to deliver data access and security at scale. The platform integrates with data centers, on-premises servers, and hybrid cloud providers like Snowflake. It can discover, secure, and monitor organizational data. This ensures that each user has the right to access to data. Immuta automatically analyses cloud data sources, detects, and tags sensitive data across multiple platforms, reduces risk, and improves data utility.
The data access platform through Immuta allows clients to quickly track who has access to what data and develop a risk profile for sensitive data. The platform also allows tracking of policy changes and user queries to support auditing. Part of what makes Immuta different is that it natively integrates into the compute layer to preserve the performance level consumers experience. Immuta has raised a total $267 million after its Series E round in 2015, and its customers include S&P Global, the U.S army, and Mercedes.
GCP Cloud Data Governance
Google Cloud’s data governance software includes Dataplex, Analytics Hub, and a suite of cloud partner products in GCP. Dataplex is Google’s solution for central data management and governance across your organization. The Analytics Hub implements data democratization with tools to easily exchange analytics assets internally and externally. Security and privacy are built into the Google Cloud suite and global compliance certifications on the platform enable frictionless data migrations to the cloud. Google also includes a collection of partner products in GCP. Together these tools grant users with data security, quality, auditing, lineage, encryption, masking, tokenization, granular access control, discovery, classification, and sharing.
Alation
Alation Data Catalog helps users locate, comprehend, and manage all enterprise data from one platform. The Alation platform uses machine learning to index and uncover an array of data sources. This includes cloud data lakes, file systems, and relational databases.
OvalEdge
OvalEdge is a competitively priced data governance toolset and catalog. These capabilities together make it a flexible product for data governance, compliance, data discovery, and data privacy. OvalEdge also features a business glossary, data access workflows, peer collaboration, and automated data consistency.
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