Who are you? This is a broad question, but much of the answer comes from your DNA, which carries the genetic instructions all living things use to develop, function and reproduce. DNA defines how we operate, what we look like — all of our basic functioning.
Data has become to your business what DNA is to your body — completely integral to its survival and growth. Unlike other DNA, business DNA is always expanding, growing and evolving with your businesses.
Data: The DNA Of Your Business
Your business data is clearly one of your company’s most valuable assets: your customer database, configuration data controlling how things work, data regarding your products and services, competitive and other analytical data. There's no question these are all integral to your business, but let’s go a step further.
Big Data
We hear much about "big data," which is the result of major improvements in the ways we collect and analyze data. Between the exploding variety of sensors all around us in buildings, tollgates, retail establishments, streetlights and other fixtures, combined with the smartphones and other mobile devices we carry, huge volumes of data points are routinely and regularly collected everywhere we go and everywhere we are. We spend very few moments of our time anymore not being measured or monitored. Certainly, all these billions of data points can be used to define us.
Microdata
What we don’t think about very often are the growing arrays of small data entities that collect all around our businesses. Just as DNA is microscopic in size but tremendous in its impact on our lives, these small microdata files define much of how our businesses operate. Without them, most of our operations would cease functioning.
Take credentials, for example. Every data system must have a way of maintaining the credentials users need to gain access. Without these smaller files — system configuration files, dynamic link libraries, application code itself — nobody would be able to use any of the big data files. No code, no computing. No configuration, no applications.
What isn’t automated today? As we add more automation to our operations, our physical work environments and more, the infinitesimal files used by “things” plus the internet of things (IoT) become more and more impactful and integral to the functioning of our companies. Each thing has a small amount of storage on it, and the data maintained in that storage is critical to that particular device fulfilling its function.
Some of these IoT functions are neither small nor trivial. Industrial control systems make sure there is sufficient light for people to walk and work in and control critical environmental factors like heat and cooling, production, manufacturing and inventory systems. They depend upon small bits of data in sensor devices that determine what the temperature setpoint for a particular area should be, as an example. A failure of that tiny database could send hundreds or thousands of employees home in the middle of the day should it cause an air conditioning system to enter an error condition.
The Critical Concern: Overcoming Data Loss
A look at the procedure behind delivering babies demonstrates the practice of freezing and storing of the umbilical cord and the stem cells contained within. The goal is to keep the stem cells available to help replace tissue, organs or other human needs should the original become damaged or lost. These items contain the DNA of the baby, which is integral to rebuilding any critical parts or systems should that person become injured or ill later in life.
This is where the way we treat big data and the way we treat all the tiny data entities differs. We spend a great deal of time and energy making sure we back up the big data to protect it from loss, theft or corruption. Most of us spend hardly any time whatsoever protecting applications, configuration files or other small data entities that are so critical to the fundamental operation of our environments.
Sometimes, that neglect we show little data costs us, big time.
Duplicate And Replicate
Just as our bodies replicate our DNA constantly, most of our systems automatically replicate data for us.
Both share one major risk. Should DNA itself become altered or injured in a living being, the replication of that altered DNA can lead to awful diseases such as cancer. Similarly, should a user make an innocent mistake, like deleting a needed file, that mistake can easily be replicated to all redundant systems. This could very quickly result in the complete loss of critical data.
It is for this reason that data must not only be replicated for convenience but also duplicated on a regular basis to assure constant data integrity. Incremental backup that saves a period of data deltas may allow us to dial back to an earlier point in time before we clobbered critical files. But it is only a complete duplicate of the data at a point in time that completely protects the data, allowing it to be restored without hesitation.
How We Handle Data DNA
We’ll talk more about how to think about, manage and effectively protect the data that forms the DNA of your business in future articles.
