You can't govern data well if you don't have a good enterprise Data Architecture. Conversely, successful data governance can be the glue that holds together a Data Architecture and the data management environment it underpins.
data governance is often seen as focusing on one of two things: committee meetings and data stewardship roles, or technical data management and controls, according to Donna Burbank, managing director of Global Data Strategy Ltd., an information management consulting company based in Boulder, Colo. Holistic data governance combines both of these aspects, and a hearty data architecture and the accompanying diagrams bind business and IT-centric governance together.
Indeed, a high-level enterprise data architecture provides the roadmap for data strategy and associated governance and acts as a guide for small, target projects for businesses to add additional detail.
"As a general rule, the more data [that] is shared across and beyond the organization, the more formal governance there needs to be," Burbank said during a session at Dataversity's inaugural Data Architecture Online event.
Currently, modern organizations use a wide variety of data platforms -- notably, on-premises relational databases, spreadsheets and packaged applications, like ERP and CRM -- according to survey data from a report coauthored by Burbank that Dataversity plans to publish in September 2019. Burbank predicted that the variety of data platforms will continue to grow. For example, survey respondents said cloud-based relational databases -- now the fourth most used platforms -- will move to the top of the list in the future.
Burbank pointed out that data governance approaches are not the same for all platforms or the data they contain. Each type of data should have its own type of governance model and rules on data sharing and usage, she advised. "Don't overgovern what you shouldn't," she said. "But don't undergovern your master data so no one knows how many customers you have." Data governance is about collaboration. You need a team of people to raise a data architecture. It really isn't just about the Data Architect. We need all those different roles with different perspectives. A survey conducted for a 2017 Dataversity report, also cowritten by Burbank, found that regulatory compliance and data governance were second on the list of the main drivers for implementing a data architecture, behind only reporting and BI applications. Burbank emphasized that building and maintaining a successful enterprise data architecture aren't just the job of the Data Architect; other positions, like the data modeler, data governance officer and database administrator, also play a role. "Data governance is about collaboration. You need a team of people to raise a data architecture," Burbank said.
