Introduction
Businesses have difficulty when it comes to unstructured data. On the one hand, they have more unstructured data than ever before, hence more possibility for generating vital insights from data. IT leaders, on the other hand, cite a range of obstacles in making use of all of their unstructured data.
According to a recent Komprise survey, significant challenges to improving unstructured data management include determining how to transfer unstructured data without upsetting users, insufficient insight into unstructured data, and regulatory limits.
To overcome these obstacles, IT companies must find ways to extract value from unstructured data while also addressing goals such as data security, cost-cutting data storage, and future-proofing data against future business demands. This circle can be squared, but only with the appropriate approach to unstructured data management.
In this blog, we will learn about the best practices and tools for managing unstructured data.
What is Unstructured Data?
Unstructured data refers to any data that does not have a defined format or structure for its organization. This type of data typically does not fit into traditional rows and columns of structured data formats such as databases, spreadsheets, or tables. Unstructured data can take many forms, such as text documents, images, audio and video recordings, social media posts, and other forms of digital content. It is estimated that most of the data generated today are unstructured.
The challenge with unstructured data is that it can be difficult to manage, analyze, and process. Traditional data analysis methods and tools may not be able to handle the complexity and variability of unstructured data, and as a result, organizations may miss out on valuable insights and information that could help them make better decisions.
Top 5 Practices for Managing Unstructured Data
- Plan for Ongoing Data Mobility
Businesses frequently perceive data transfer as an uncommon, recurring operation. When they intend to migrate data from on-premises to the cloud, for example, they may believe that the migration is complete after the data is moved to the cloud.
Data lifecycles are more complicated in reality. Unstructured data is frequently in motion in many circumstances. After moving data to the cloud, it’s possible that you’ll transfer it to multiple storage tiers inside the cloud, or from one sort of cloud service (such as object storage) to another. (like a data analytics platform).
As a result, IT directors require a methodical approach to managing data transfer on a constant basis. They should regard cloud data migration as an ongoing activity, and when possible, they should assist it with policy-based automation. That is the only way to assure that data is always in the appropriate location when it transitions from active usage to cold storage or archives—and, occasionally, back to active use.
- When it comes to unstructured data, don’t go in blind
Effective unstructured data management begins with knowing your data and understanding the key metrics that surround it. To get started, you’ll need to get visibility into items like:
- How much data do you have?
- How old your data is?
- Where the data is stored?
- What types of information does the data consist of?
- Who owns the data?
- Who can access the data?
- What does it cost to store the data?
This visibility is crucial since most unstructured data is created within silos. Each department in your company most certainly has its own collection of papers, video, audio, application data (for example, genomics, medical imaging, or self-driving vehicle data), reports, and so on.
3. Enable Data Self-Service Security
Similarly, IT directors should prioritize providing self-service access to unstructured data to business users.
This is because neither shifting data to the cloud nor establishing a data lake is sufficient to ensure that it has meaningful economic value. To do this, users must be able to readily locate the data and incorporate it into their workflows through the use of seamless self-service procedures.
The key to allowing self-service is systematically labeling unstructured data. When data is well-labeled, users throughout the company can simply search for and retrieve the documents, photographs, videos, and other forms of information they require—regardless of how many data assets the organization owns or its organizational structure.
- Continuously Increase the Value of Unstructured Data
To some extent, IT executives are already considering how to add value to unstructured data. As part of their data transfer and consolidation operations, they are indexing unstructured data to make it simpler to identify, search for, and use. And they’re leveraging the cloud to establish a data lake where they can easily access cloud compute services to drive analytics for their data, not simply as a low-cost storage option. - Accept Standard-Based Data Management
You own your data. Don’t allow sellers to tell you where to put it or what you may do with it. Instead, use standards-compliant unstructured data management technologies. This assures that you can transport data across any platform or utilize any sort of standards-based data service without relying on a single vendor to allow that feature.
Best Tool for Document Management
As the world is continually changing, standards-based management of unstructured data is very vital. Even if you’re satisfied with the data platforms and tools you’re using now, you might not be satisfied tomorrow. Standards-based tools like Oriental Solutions, Chennai, ensure that you are never stranded because you are unable to move data.
Furthermore, Oriental Solutions have standards-based technologies that help ensure that enterprises may do anything they need to do with their data without incurring license penalties and expenses, such as those associated with a third-party cloud filesystem or excessive cloud-egress fees.
You may immediately access the data and utilize all the cloud data services on your data by employing data-management solutions with Oriental Solutions that store data in native format in each tier without having to pay a data-management or storage vendor.
