What Is Data Discovery and Why Should I Use It?
The brain is an amazing organ. It weighs about 3 ½ pounds and consists of two hemispheres, 100 billion neurons, and 100 trillion synapses: the command and control center for each of us. The brain controls autonomous functions like heartbeats and brainwaves, but it also allows us to learn through its unequaled capacity for identifying and analyzing patterns. Intelligence is essentially the ability to store patterns in our memory.
Recognizing and analyzing patterns makes us uniquely human. That is, until computers can do it better. When IBM developed machines to recognize and analyze chessboard patterns, the machines could “learn” to defeat grandmasters. Today, IBM’s Watson is starting to diagnose diseases; Google and Tesla vehicles are learning to drive autonomously.
This is all possible through data discovery. At its core, data discovery is the “process of extracting actionable patterns from data.” It starts with aggregated data, identifies outliers, and results in extracted data to be leveraged in specific circumstances.
Data discovery helps you develop real world solutions based on specific data provided by established patterns.
That Doesn’t Sound Too Hard…
And, it isn’t – if you have the right tool.
The problem is the sheer amount of data. Estimates predict daily data generation at 2.5 billion gigabytes per day, and 90% of the world’s collective data has been produced in just the last two years.
In a 2016 study, Veritas found that of the information stored and processed globally, 52% is “dark”’ (no one really knows what it holds) and another 33% is redundant, obsolete or trivial (ROT) and useless. More telling is the fact that employees spend up to 30% of their workday (2.5 hours) searching for useful data.
Can any company tame the chaos of information overload? Is there a way to locate all files and to evaluate each one’s importance—if any—to the business? And, is it even possible to create an ongoing, sustainable system to manage files today and in the future?
Yes! Information management—also known as information Governance or IG—is not only possible but accessible. The right tool can help you comprehend and protect the data you have, get rid of data you don’t need, and provide data access to the right people at the right time.
How Can FileFacets Help?
With FileFacets, your business can find, analyze, and categorize data. The result: You spend less time searching for data, resulting in solving problems more quickly and effectively.
FileFacets scans content within file sharing environments, enterprise content management systems, Microsoft Exchange servers, and individual desktops. The tool analyzes and recognizes data patterns, then categorizes files into tailored headings (e.g., contracts, billing, PII, etc.). It can also flag anomalies (outliers) to determine file or data ROT (redundant, obsolete, and trivial); this helps optimize your data for action. Then it helps you manage your data for easier searches and analysis.
FileFacets allows you to locate and process all content across your enterprise.