Data is a Virus

To paraphrase William S. Burroughs, "Data is a Virus"....

Data is the life-blood of any modern organization. A common problem at any IT shop is the proliferation of data sources and stores. Data management is a key IT capability which typically has no single owner. And unlike most other IT assets, data tends to move around a lot and grow quickly. Data is like life itself: it has an inherent desire to replicate. Like the stuff in your garage, it will grow to exceed all available disk space.

Some data, like a customer’s SSN and other Non-Public Information (NPI), needs to be quarantined like a “hot” virus. It should have an indisputable chain of ownership like the evidence on CSI. Few systems have the capability to track sensitive information at this level. How do organizations obtain this capability throughout core information models like Customer? Only by establishing iron-clad enterprise-wide information meta-models that “strongly type” these fine-grained data elements and requiring applications, middleware and tooling to enforce these rules.

If your business and systems architecture does not anticipate this life force, these pathogens will escape from behind your firewalls. I've even heard of some organizations contemplating “banning” data replication as a technical fix, as if they could ban life itself. If your IT shop isn’t demonstrably working towards practical, comprehensive management of your data (more than information security “awareness programs” or overly restrictive hobbling of your application delivery), they are exposing your brand to “tar and feathering” in the marketplace.

Copyright John Sovereign, 2006