As technology rapidly evolves to meet our needs, some features, practices, and tools become obsolete. Take the example of Google Maps, which revolutionized the way we navigate. We used to rely on roadmaps and GPS, but now there are technologies capable of instantly generating the shortest and simplest route to our destination. There are even transportation apps that offer the possibility of taking us to our destination in the fastest and most comfortable way possible. While we may not think much about it now, it's incredible how technology has evolved to cater to our needs and convenience. Something similar has happened in the world of Data Management.

Data Management: managing company data

Today, every company in the world needs to deal with data, from the smallest family-run store in your neighborhood to the largest multinational corporation with millions of employees. Data is everywhere, and in order for it to become a powerful tool, it needs to be properly managed.

The discipline that deals with the management and administration of data is called Data Management, and it can be defined as a set of architectures that keep information organized, clean, usable, and secure. With proper management, it's possible to avoid operational burdens and costs associated with maintaining duplicate, poor, or unnecessary copies of data, while saving a significant amount of time and storage.

Additionally, Data Management establishes the foundation for subsequent data analysis, which enables making accurate decisions. Therefore, without good information management, analysis cannot be properly executed, which would be a true disaster, if not impossible.

The question is: the data management implementations used so far are becoming less and less efficient and often become obsolete, outdated, or require significant configuration and maintenance effort. Why is that? Due to the enormous amount of data being produced, technological infrastructures are constantly changing, and user response times are increasingly demanding.

But for every problem, a solution must be found: enter Data Fabric. This new technology comes to give life to an effective and long-lasting Data Management 3.0, where data explodes everywhere. It's similar to what happened with maps: they have always existed, but new technologies like this one allow us to manage data much more efficiently, comfortably, and simply.

What is a Data Fabric?

As we have seen, a Data Fabric is the next level of what was mentioned above; it is the evolution of the maturity of data management disciplines we have had so far, and therefore, a great technological opportunity. Before we delve into its many benefits, we need to define the concept.

A Data Fabric is an architecture of a very specific set of technological services that is responsible for managing an organization's data comprehensively and in real-time, connecting all information silos and ensuring their quality, privacy, and availability to all users who need it, in a secure and comfortable environment.

This platform provides technical training to users, facilitating, simplifying, and unifying Data Management processes to make them much more efficient through resources and tools that generate value and profitability for businesses.

Benefits of Data Fabric

We are still in an early stage, and there is much to be done. But it is necessary to start making decisions, unifying criteria, and defining data management objectives, as implementing it brings significant benefits to businesses.

Are there barriers to this new technology?

Despite the significant benefits of Data Fabrics, implementing them is not as easy as it may seem. The problem lies in the lack of data culture. Today, for companies to become data-driven and successfully implement and use these platforms in their daily operations, a change in the traditional culture of the company to a data culture is required. But nobody likes change.

Technical departments are used to working with interfaces they are familiar with, and business departments have no idea about the world of data. Therefore, more than a technological change, it all depends on people. They must first embrace the change, adopt a new data-driven mindset, and step out of their comfort zone; otherwise, success will be impossible. The next step is to continuously and persistently train employees in the world of data through tools that enable them to use data in their daily work, making them data-driven employees. Data must become the new language of companies that want to make a difference.

In conclusion, companies are generating increasingly larger and uncontrollable volumes of data that require more evolved and efficient architectures than those that exist up to now. Therefore, Data Management takes a step forward with Data Fabrics that arise to meet these needs through a platform that enables universal access to all company data, breaks down silos between departments by providing technical and business self-service, explores metadata, automates processes using modern technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and integrates APIs into a single environment, all to harness the immense value provided by data and make better day-to-day business decisions.