Metadata Management: why start now?

The data we were working with a few years ago, is not the same as the data nowadays. The volumes are bigger, there is more variety and changes. Without proper metadata management you will get lost and miss out on the value your data can provide.

The world is changing

Big Data revolution

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Getting value from data

Data needs to bring value - otherwise there is no point in storing it. To get value from data you need to understand it first. This might be difficult without proper documentation, especially for business users.

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High variability

Even small changes in the data or data schema can affect the results of an analysis or crash an app. The more data you have, the more important it is to track these changes.

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A large variety of data

Enterprise data consists of multiple data types - customer data, transaction records, emails, support tickets, images, etc. To get insights from data, you need to document and catalog it first.

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Veracity - can you trust your data?

Having data you can’t trust can cost your company millions of dollars. Hygiene of data is key for accurate results in analytics. To ensure it, you need to take care of data quality - data documentation with data profiling and community feedback can help with it.

Dataedo
Dataedo

Remote work

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Post covid reality

Since the pandemic has started many companies have switched to remote work and most employees aren’t planning to go back to the office for 40 hours per week. They need to have access to the knowledge about company’s data from home.

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Self-sufficiency is important

Analysts and business users should be able to use data for analytics without help from IT. The same goes for new employees in IT - they shouldn’t have to waste precious time of senior developers with questions about the database. With comprehensive documentation everyone would able to understand and use the data by themselves, no matter who and where they are.

Data-driven organizations

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Decisions based on data

To avoid costly mistakes, all descisions should be made based on data. To make data-driven decisions though you need to understand your data first and be sure that you can trust it.

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Business less reliant on IT & BI

Business users don’t want to (and shouldh’t have to!) be reliant on IT when it comes to access to data and analyzing it. Data democratization is required and can be achieved throug proper metadata management.

Dataedo
Dataedo

Data protection regulations

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Regulations (GDPR, CCPA, PII..)

SInce GDPR, CCPA and other data protection regulations took efect, comapnies have to be much more careful about processing personal data.

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Large fines

It is important to be able to easily identify where personal data is stored to protect it and process only according to the rules. Otherwise the goverment might impse a fine on your company.

Metadata Management: Everyone is doing it

Metadata Management can help you to adjust to the ever-changing world of data. It is no longer an initiative taken on only by the largest companies, same like Data Warehousing / BI years ago. According to a study from 2020 conducted by Dataversity 84% of respondents already have this type of initiative in place or have plans to implement it.
Data Warehousing / BI: 2000s
dataedo-warehousing
Metadata Management: Now
dataedo-warehousing

What do you risk by not managing your metadata?

Cost of searching for the data

Searching for the data in all your databases – CRM, ERP, data warehouse, data lake, etc., can be a very tedious task. When you find the right tables, you still need to understand meaning and logic of specific columns/fields and joins with other tables. That task takes time and was probably done in your organization a number of times. Do not reinvent the wheel multiple times. Create a data documentation once and share it across organization.

Dataedo
Dataedo

Risk of bad decisions

Poor understanding of data leads to poor data analytics and poor business decisions. Data documentation can save your company from unimaginable amount of money & time you could lose due to bad decisions.

Risk of lost knowledge

If you don’t document your knowledge about data, it can leave your company with people who have it. Replicating that knowledge might take many months or even years and even then, it still may be hard to learn all the tricks, exceptions, and why certain design decisions were made.

Dataedo
Dataedo

Cost of scaling of the data team

Starting to work with a new data source can take many days or weeks. Even identifying key tables and entities may be a challenge. When everyone is learning just for him/herself then your organization multiplies that time for each person. Onboarding new people is a lot easier when you have documented your data.

Manage your metadata with Dataedo

Understand & easily discover relevant data

Collect and combine knowledge about data from many different sources to make smarter data-driven decisions. Decrypt table and column names with business friendly aliases and provide meaning and purpose of data assets with descriptions. Use sample data to learn what data is stored in your data assets. and make sure that the data is good quality.

Dataedo
Dataedo

Build a community around your data

Build data literacy, democratize data and empower everyone in your organization to make better use of your data with lightweight on-premises data catalog. Allow everyone to share their observations and to accumulate valuable knowledge in one place through comments, ratings, questions, to-dos, and warnings.

Comply with data protection regulations

Scan your databases and find and tag fields holding personal data and private health data so you can know what data you are processing and where to comply with data protection regulations such as GDPR or HIPAA.

Dataedo
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