8 Data Management Tips that Organizations Must Follow

Data is now a term that everybody, everywhere is well aware of. With the advent of affordable data plans and smartphones, per capita data consumption in India alone has increased 15 times from 0.26GB to 4GB/month according to TRAI from 2014 to 2017. As of today, a massive amount of data has been accumulated. Nevertheless, without an efficient data management strategy, all this data is effectively an anagram that cannot be solved.

“Given the gigantic amount of data being handled by organizations today; it is imperative to have an effective data management system in place,” says Mr Manoj Dhingra, Director, Domestic Business, Stellar Information Technology Pvt. Ltd, in an interview with DataQuest. This, he says, can be achieved by taking the following steps:

Understand Value of Data

Segregate the data into regular, important and mission critical. Follow secure data storage protocol; take multiple and multi-location data backups. In the event of a breach, the system should allow for data recovery from storage in real time to ensure business continuity.

Understand Industry Requirements

Choose a relevant Data Management System that is compliant with the Industry Rules & Regulations, e.g. HIPAA compliance in case of Healthcare industry.

Build Data Security Plan

Data available in the organization needs to be secured by following encryption protocols and password protection right from hardware level to Operating System and Application level. In the event of data breach, it is essential to reach out to a certified, secure data care experts who can help in getting the sensitive data back and also maintain the data privacy.

Develop Secure Backup

Data needs to be backed-up at regular intervals; in multiple storage systems across multiple locations. This is a critically important safeguard in event of data breach.

Training

All associates need to be made aware of pitfalls of data breach and trained on the procedures to be followed to ensure proper Data Security.

Secure end of life IT Asset disposition

Proper Sanitization of data from old and legacy hardware is a must. Organizations need to follow secure methods of data sanitization (erasure) like BitRaser to safeguard privacy and prevent breach.

Data Audits

Undertake regular Data audits to check out for any pitfalls in the Data Security process and avoid incidence of data breach in future.

Disaster Management Plan

Organization must outline the strategy to be followed in the event of data loss due to any manmade or natural disasters. Ensure live replication of data at multiple geo locations. In case of failure or data loss situations, reach out to an established and certified Data Care vendor with requisite experience and expertise to help you get back the lost data.