Harnessing Data Fabric for Future-Proof Enterprise Data Management

by IT Executives Council | May 6, 2024 | Big Data, Data Analytics

Data is becoming an increasingly essential part of today’s business landscape. Leaders use it to make important decisions. It provides insight into market trends, customer behavior, and other metrics that can boost profitability.

The latest trend in data is data fabric. It offers comprehensive data integration, convenient data management, and enhanced accessibility. It presents complex data solutions across various applications.

What is a Data Fabric?

Data fabric solves many of the problems associated with traditional data. While data is often easy enough to collect, it can be difficult to process and transform it to provide business solutions and insights. Organizations are unable to harness a comprehensive overview of business processes and gain a competitive edge.

The technology of data fabric can be compared to a cloth that covers various digital networks. Users can access the cloth at any time, from any place. They have real-time access to the data they require.

The system allows users to extract valuable insights. It makes data more manageable and accessible. It automates the data collection process, so leaders glean more from the data they collect.

How the Data Fabric Helps Businesses

The biggest issue with data collection is, it’s collected over so many systems and platforms. Management requires dealing with different data types and structures. It is stored in on-premises and cloud locations and maintained on various file systems.

As a result, data is difficult to use and access.

Many companies solve this issue by storing data in silos. Others use data lakes and warehouses that collect data store data and reference it as needed.

However, these systems often make the data inaccessible company-wide. When data is available, latencies delay the decision-making process. Departments struggle to make useful predictions that support growth and profitability.

Data fabric provides a safe and accessible system that solves common integration issues. It speeds up the decision-making process.

Data Fabric Uses

Data Integration: Data integration is one of data fabric’s most important uses. It allows organizations to combine data across multiple sources into a comprehensive overview. It eliminates the need for data silos and makes data more accessible across departments.

Data Analytics: The data fabric architecture is conducive to data analytics. It provides a unified view of the collected data to support real-time analytics that leads to greater insights.

Data Governance: Data fabric makes it easy for organizations to implement governance policies for data management. This feature is especially useful for agencies that prioritize security, such as government organizations. It ensures personally identifiable information (PII), and other sensitive data, are protected.

Data Virtualization: Data virtualization is a technology trend that combines data from multiple sources into a unified virtual view without moving or replicating data. The lack of movement and replication minimizes risks in the preparation and analysis processes. Data fabric supports this technology allowing teams to gain an overview of their company, market, and industry.

Master Data Management: Master data management is a superior data management system. It provides high-quality data that supports better decision-making. It involves creating a single data source that offers advanced accuracy and consistency. Data fabric supports the accuracy and consistency of the information.

Cloud Migration: Many businesses are migrating to the cloud to take advantage of the scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency it offers. Data fabric allows organizations to build an architecture that spans across cloud and on-premises environments. It also provides elastic data processing which supports the rapidly fluctuating state of today’s workloads.

Data Federation: Like data virtualization, data federation provides a unified overview of data. However, rather than providing an abstract unified view, it queries different data sources and combines the information into a single virtual format. It offers a more flexible and dynamic system. Data fabric supports this flexibility allowing the organization to do more with their data.

What are the Benefits of Data Fabric?

Adaptability: Allows the system to adapt and adjust across various operating and storage systems
Scalability: Scales easily without the need to invest in extra hardware or train additional staff
Compliance, Accessibility & Integrity: Provides regulation compliance, optimal integrity, and real-time accessibility

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