Data silos create challenges for IT managers

Demand for easier data retrieval and data growth cited as top challenges

Security risks created by data silos is cited as a top challenge by 34 per cent of Australian and New Zealand IT managers according to an IDC survey.

The survey was commissioned by Commvault and conducted with 600 respondents in Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India during November and December.

The survey also found that 15 per cent of A/NZ IT managers found it difficult to manage complex data environments while 16 per cent of A/NZ IT respondents said that data silos were causing lower productivity and hindering the ability to collaborate.

The top two data management challenges in Asia Pacific included demand for easier and faster data retrieval and exponential data growth.

Commenting on the findings, IDC big data, analytics, enterprise applications and social senior program manager Daniel-Zoe Jimenez said that poor data management approaches can leave data scattered in disparate silos across multiple applications and platforms.

"This not only leads to increased storage costs but also makes key data assets inaccessible to the organisation and vulnerable to compliance issues, creating risks for the organisation,” he said.

For example, data silos could increase an organisation's exposure to the unknown.

"Isolated data management approaches in which business units only focus on meeting their specific data-related requirements can lead to inconsistent, redundant, often unprotected and contradictory datasets which live in line of business specific applications,” Jimenez said.

He said that IT managers should determine what data the organisation should collect, manage, analyse and protect at the beginning of each project.

Read more: Security appliances: Australian UTM market growth to continue

“These practices should be established at an enterprise wide level first, and in accordance to the overall data management strategy, not on an ad hoc basis.”

Cloud computing was cited as a top investment area for IT departments. However, the key challenge for 32 per cent of A/NZ respondents was ensuring secure and real-time synchronisation of business critical data to improve efficiency.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU, or take part in the Computerworld conversation on LinkedIn: Computerworld Australia

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