Organizations across every business sector increasingly rely on data to drive business outcomes. However, the time required to gather, cleanse and curate that information means less time for business end users to derive useful insights.

For example, recent research from IDC shows that data professionals waste on average 30% of their time because they cannot find, protect or prepare useful data. In this article, we explore the benefits of DataOps and data fabrics, and we consider how a comprehensive analytics platform can help uncover the untapped value of dark data.

Making Sense of Dark Data

Dark data is different in every industry, yet it primarily consists of unstructured, untagged, and untapped information that flows through every organization. It includes historical files, applications, media, datasets, log files and content generated in CRMs, ERPs, product management tools, supply chains, knowledge bases, inventory, and HR.

Along with the resource-intensive demand for mining dark data, organizations face challenges with multi-cloud adoptions and seamless data access. For example, C-suite leaders are grappling with the mandate to ensure resource scalability through increased cloud adoptions. Research from Gartner projects that by 2022, public cloud resources will be essential for spearheading over 90% of all data and analytics innovation.

Cloud-based analytics can even out the competitive playing field for organizations. They’re focusing on self-service capabilities to democratize and operationalize data management, from data mining to analytics. One goal is to break down silos and data lakes to deliver a 360-degree view of customers and enhance the customer experience, which in turn translates into increased business potential.

Adopting DataOps and Data Fabrics to Uncover Value

DataOps methodologies can transform how companies analyze data and dramatically improve workflows. It’s about creating cross-functional, agile teams to operationalize data management. Through increased collaborations between engineering and business teams, organizations can turn dark data into valuable information.

“It’s using the resources that organizations already have in a much more efficient way to break down those silos, cross-correlating data across repositories more effectively,” says Madhup Mishra, Director of Product Marketing at Hitachi Vantara. “Companies can then achieve a 360-degree view of customers and more effective use of the data that’s accrued instead of business outcomes based on segmented, exclusive roles.”

Employing a data fabric also enables organizations to unify all their disparate data. Combining DataOps with fabrics, companies can then resolve the silo problem and apply analytic insights to improve customer experience, spin up new offerings, streamline operations and enhance business initiatives.

“In order to use that data, you can’t put it all in a single data lake. Bringing all the data together doesn’t work. Data has gravity and you need to be able to use it wherever it resides,” says Mishra. “The concept of a data fabric enables you to unify and correlate all this data together in a unified fashion.”

Overcoming Obstacles to Data Discovery, Cloud Migrations and Data Usage

Today, management, security, and orchestration have become critically important as data typically spans multiple clouds and on-premises locations. Enterprises today must ensure pipeline portability and recognize its importance. They require flexibility to move an often-enormous number of pipelines as the underlying data migrates from on-premises to the cloud.

Management and orchestration reside in the form of code within preexisting pipelines and customized scripts that only work with a designated cloud provider. Organizations want to avoid the expensive proposition of rebuilding pipelines because it requires significant programming, time, and expense.

Solving the Dark Data Problem With Lumada

The Lumada DataOps Suite from Hitachi Vantara offers a unified platform with a single suite of integrated products combining proven Hitachi Vantara technologies, AI, advanced analytics, and data management capabilities. IT administrators and business end users can eliminate the need to manage multiple tools while accessing features that are automatic, composable and open.

Lumada can help organizations quickly improve their key performance metrics, reduce the time it takes to access information, tackle data complexity, and create valuable insights. Businesses can rapidly identify and utilize data to gain a competitive advantage using the platform’s data management and analytics features. And real-time collaboration features bring engineering and business teams closer together to achieve analytics goals.

These capabilities include search, filter, and export functions to help end users identify the best data sets for their specific projects. The Lumada DataOps Suite transforms disparate data silos and helps lower the cost of data operations by placing the right data quickly into the hands of data analysts and business leaders. To learn how you can accelerate and improve your data analytics initiatives, visit: https://www.hitachivantara.com/intelligent-dataops