The continued spread of technology into
every area of our lives continues. This is a well-known headache for corporate
IT folks, who now face enormous problems supporting different access devices
and channels. They also worry that business data “is now strewn everywhere. No
longer locked behind firewalls in managed data repositories, data lives many
places outside of the enterprise”.
The consumerization of IT has been going on
ever since the rise of the (IBM PC) clones in the late 1980s. For thirty years
or more, corporate IT has struggled to keep technology in its box. The
liberation of data, first enabled by floppy disks and now accelerated by
ubiquitous connectivity, has made every organization a potentially leaky boat.
So, data management must look outside of
the organization. If you're responsible for business information, your remit
now includes the entire world. You have no choice but to negotiate data
administration rights with owners of devices which you allow to connect to your
networks.
I believe organizations can also work
together fruitfully to safeguard business data. This is an important role for
industry groups, and another important reason for adhering to the data
standards produced by such groups. Standards make it much easier to track the
usage of data in the wild. The standards-setting process also provides an ideal
forum for pursuing joint work on “wild data”. Data Integration Blog