Take a moment and think about some of the changes in computing over the last decade. The iPad debuted in 2010. Smartphones weren’t in everybody’s pockets yet. 4G was starting to branch out from major cities around the world. And we had only a taste of the Big Data.
The way everyone uses computers has fundamentally changed. It has redefined the role networks play in our lives. Employees are no longer limited to corporate systems and workstations to do their job. Students can connect to academic servers from any place on earth. The use of mobile devices, laptops, and tablets have now fostered the growth of the telecommute era.
It’s time for companies to embrace the data-centric approach. It’s the only way to adapt to technological advances and prime themselves for the changes to come.
Data-centric refers to structuring architecture to make the data the primary assets. Applications and hardware may come and go, but data will be around and valid forever.
It goes against traditional approaches to data. Businesses aim for functionality when purchasing application systems. The problem is, each application has a unique data model that binds data with its own code. To change between data models and move between systems can be challenging. Millions of lines of code depend on the current model. And this is only the beginning. Moving into each System then involves thousands of different individual apps and attributes. Most of them may not be able to export data.
The data-centric approach flips this entirely. When using a data model, each application reads and writes data through a shared channel creating a database. With standard core terms, it’s possible to both use and edit applications as needed while accessing data.
New technologies form the foundation of a data-centric approach. It makes it possible to use different methods of communication to share data via WiFi, cellular, and Bluetooth connections.
It creates new security issues while diminishing the classical notion of internal networks. With all these connection points, how do you track authorized and unauthorized users? After all, there’s now a more significant number of active users and devices operating on a corporate network.
Shifting to a data-centric approach needs organizations to focus on network tools and solutions. It moves away from the “fortress” concept of security.
