Copy Data Management for Non-Production Users

For enterprise and large business environments, the production data growth rate should be steady and predictable. For enterprise and large business environments, the production data growth rate should be steady and predictable. Nonetheless, it is almost inevitable that a company’s copy data from non-production users will grow at an exponential rate unless it is properly managed. In the past, there were few centralized solutions to manage the distribution of data copies without increasing the burden on IT and creating a bottleneck that causes project delays for non-production operating environments. Moreover, human productivity and inefficiency are not the only negative outcomes, as extra copies take up extra space and extra space costs money. As more capacity is used to store copies of data, the organization becomes less efficient. Conversely, the better an organization is at managing copy data, the more money they can by eliminating unnecessary storage expenses, while reducing system burden and lag time.

Copy Data Management Eliminates the Unnecessary

Redundant copies of the same data can make accessing, backing -up, and restoring an organization’s mission-critical data more difficult and more expensive. Copy Data Management (CDM) is a category of IT solutions that maintains vital metadata to improve data management functions, such as: 

1. Efficiency of Self- Service Data Access – Waiting days or weeks to gain access to data is inefficient and costly. Since CDM makes copies available to non-technical data consumers when and where they need them, users have self-service data access. 
2. Quality Data for Testing Scenarios – Instead of having to create data for testing from scratch, copy data management provides controls to ensure the integrity, authenticity, and confidentiality of data for whatever testing scenario is needed. 
3. Data Storage Reduction – Redundant copies of the same data wastes storage space. CDM reduces data storage consumption by eliminating the unnecessary duplication of production data. A subset database is smaller and much easier to maintain. 
4. Reduce Likelihood of Data Overwrite – By eliminating unnecessary duplication of production data, there should be less frequent database refreshes. A good copy data management module can reduce the risk of production data overwrites. 

If your IT organization is getting bogged down by the complex web of scripts and vendor tools, it is time to consider a new approach. CDM addresses multiple issues, at the same time making it easier to locate and use the right copy as well as track the lineage, location, access rights, completion status, and timestamps of related copies. 

Managing the Full Lifecycle of Copy Data

Enterprise production data has historically been used to run the organization’s day-to-day business operations. However, as companies looked for cost-reduction opportunities, they began to realize the broader value that production data has for development and testing, tracking analytics, and compiling reports, as well as how its data could be useful in gaining new market share, increasing revenues, and maintaining a higher level of industry competitiveness.  From a cost perspective, organizations can realize a storage reduction of over 85% in their non-production environments. Nonetheless, the biggest benefit is the timely, reliable, accurate, and robust data access across non-production operations of the enterprise, to accelerate application release cycles, improve decision making, and increase productivity through self-directed access to the right copy data.