Tuesday | 2 December, 2008
From Marginalized to Virtualized
Weighed down by data, IT isn’t moving at business-speed and is being treated like the fat boy no one wants on the basketball squad. Virtualization can get you back on the team.
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What's Required?
In simple terms, what you need to enable this infrastructure is a global virtual data access layer that encapsulates and centralizes data management functionality in one place. Ideally, this virtual data 'portal' will present itself as whatever the application wants it to be regardless of the type of data it spits out. It would ingest the data and route it to whatever appropriate underlying infrastructure meets the business unit requirements. As a central data management engine, it would be able to apply universal and object specific policies -- such as retention, protection, security, categorization, performance/life-cycle management and so on -- based on a menu of options the business unit chooses -- each with a known cost.
Consider data as either 'dynamic' or 'fixed' -- a non-changing digital asset. I'd suggest that every single data object lives in this layer once it becomes fixed. It may be physically relegated to offsite, offline media, but to the application or the business unit, it is available -- until a policy states that it must be destroyed. In that way, when legal wants to bring a new e-discovery search tool online in the future, it can point at all of the living corporate data, not just portions. When the marketing department wants to mine data for business intelligence and value, it points its gun at the one place where everything lives. Imagine how much easier this could make it to garner new value from old data and destroy the chasm that exists between the business and IT at the same time.
This approach provides for IT to re-evaluate and completely alter faulty processes, and enable consistency and speed in our ability to deliver services to the business. From media management to regulatory compliance, all the tactical and difficult IT functions that cause us to say no, so often could now be centrally managed and controlled, enabling IT to say yes first, and dynamically make the necessary changes happen without being a drag on the progress of the business; and that will be one happy day for a lot of people.
It could happen -- heck, it should happen, and when it does somebody is going to get very, very rich.
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