Security a top challenge in building a modern data platform
Modern data platforms help manage large volumes of data and empower real-time decision-making. It starts with overcoming the top challenges organizations identify.
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Published: 12 Sep 2023
In a recent survey by TechTarget's Enterprise Strategy Group, participants reported what their top barriers or challenges are when building a modern data platform. As they try to empower real-time, data-driven decision-making in their organizations, unsurprisingly, data security ranked at the top of the list -- as can be seen in the report, "Data Platforms: The Path to Achieving Data-Driven Empowerment 2023."
Over the past year, data governance and security concerns have risen as organizations focus on building data platforms to manage growing volumes of data and extract that data's value into data insights. This continues to be true as generative AI makes its way into organizations at an alarming rate. In the pursuit of a comprehensive and empowered data platform, organizations place significant emphasis on securing and safeguarding their data. This encompasses the implementation of robust data governance practices, particularly as sensitive data is increasingly distributed to data users.
To confidently provide real-time data insights to end users on a large scale, organizations recognize the necessity for more robust tools and approaches that address security, governance, compliance and cost control requirements. This heightened focus on data protection is a crucial step toward enabling organizations to deliver valuable insights while they ensure the integrity and confidentiality of their data assets.
Other top challenges include operational complexity, compliance exposures and skill shortages.
Top challenges organizations face when building a modern data platform.
Benefits of the modern data platform
A modern data platform is a suite of software and infrastructure that lets organizations collect, store, process and analyze data from a variety of sources. It is designed to be scalable, flexible and agile so that organizations can quickly adapt to changing data needs. These environments can be complex and require many different skill sets, which correlates with the responses from survey participants.
However, the benefits outweigh the challenges as organizations realize the productivity gains and value of extracting data insights to empower business decision-makers with accurate and actionable data.
Data platforms are important for several reasons. First, they enable organizations to collect and store more data than ever before. This is essential for businesses that want to stay ahead of the competition and make informed decisions based on data.
The benefits outweigh the challenges as organizations realize the productivity gains and value of extracting data insights to empower business decision-makers with accurate and actionable data.
Second, they make it easier to analyze data. This is important for businesses that want to gain insights from their data and use it to improve their operations.
Third, they are agile and can quickly adapt to changing data needs. This is important for businesses that are constantly evolving and must respond to new challenges quickly.
Data platforms are increasingly important as businesses rely more on data to make decisions. They help businesses gain insights that can improve decision-making, increase efficiency and lead to new opportunities for growth.
Here are some of the benefits of using a modern data platform:
Increased agility compared to traditional data platforms, which makes it easier to adapt to changing data needs.
Improved scalability to meet the needs of any growing businesses.
Reduced costs of managing and storing data.
Improved security to protect data from unauthorized access and stronger governance.
Increased efficiency of data processing and analysis workflows.
Increased insights from data, which can be used to make better decisions.
This data point was one of many from research on all aspects of a data platform, from data collection to empowering business decision-makers. Other research showed a large increase in data sources, data users and a common goal of delivering data insights in real time to keep pace with the business needs.
Enterprise Strategy Group is a division of TechTarget. Its analysts have business relationships with technology vendors.
