Data Lineage for Crisis
Well-worn is the notion that the COVID-19 crisis has spared no organisation. The pandemic itself looms large into 2021, with its many intertwining effects lingering far longer. We know that COVID is not the first — and will not be the last — challenge of this magnitude. During a crisis, the need organisations have for timely and accurate data is accentuated. We need the right data, quickly and in context to plot the course for recovery. Data itself has taken on even greater importance, with sensitive financial and health-related data relevant to the welfare of organisations, their people and the public at large.
Organisations that invest in the right practices and tools have a distinct advantage. Risk and damage will be minimised, response times will be faster and recoveries will be stronger. Across teams and verticals, Alex is being used to achieve pressing outcomes via our extensive suite of Metadata Management Solutions. In this article, we will focus on the way that Alex Solutions Data Lineage is helping some of the world’s best companies make critical decisions in the COVID era. Data Lineage is essential for maximising value from data in order to emerge stronger post-pandemic.
During this crisis, the amount of data generated and consumed by organisations is growing at an exponential rate. But it isn’t just the volume and complexity of data spread across numerous systems in different areas of the enterprise that poses a problem. The inability to understand the life-cycle and content of this data, due to ‘processing’ that is arduously manual and incomplete, poses numerous risks. The effort-drain inherent to these manual processes is crippling when agility and response times are key to survival and success. In a crisis, every minute counts and can separate the winners from the losers. Further, losing track of the character and location of sensitive data — the kind that is exploding during COVID — can give rise to potential regulatory issues.
Alex Data Lineage reveals the entire life-cycle of data within the organisation, including how it transforms and moves from place to place. The Lineage is entirely automated, scanning your systems and generating a detailed map at a high degree of completeness. With this enriched context, Data Citizens are empowered to conduct rapid and accurate impact analysis, either at scale or down to a granular (columnar, table, report) level. This helps your people swiftly understand the downstream or upstream impacts of any potential changes, allowing them to dedicate their valuable time and effort to taking the actions that will get you to the other side of this crisis in even better shape than before. In short, the Lineage is applicable across your systems, meaning you will spend less time investigating and more time on taking action.
Perhaps most critically for the current crisis and future of Data Management, Alex Data Lineage is the tool you need to radically reduce regulatory compliance risks. Sensitive data is growing at exponential rates during COVID-19. Alex’s automated Data Lineage represents one of the quickest and most reliable solutions to manage the increasing compliance pressures. One of the world’s largest companies is currently leveraging our Lineage to report their entire dataflow — including all processing — to the regulator. Previously faced with limited understanding of where assets entered their systems or their journey afterwards, Alex unlocked this knowledge. Our automation alleviated the strain of manual data capture and analysis, and replaced ad-hoc with simple and repeatable processes. Hundreds of different applications holding over tens of millions of data assets have been scanned to generate report-ready Data Lineage visualisations. Built-in workflows enable collaboration and ensure processes are followed ‘by the book’.
If you’re ready to adopt rapid and accurate Data Lineage to provide trusted insights during times of crisis and augment your organisation’s recovery from COVID-19, get in contact with Alex Solutions today to organise a demonstration tailored to your specific organisation and requirements.
