The Future of Composable, Decentralized Data Management
Embrace composable, decentralized data for seamless collaboration and security in the data-driven era.
Brian Platz, CEO of Fluree, dives into the future of data management. Learn how composable, decentralized data revolutionizes collaboration and security in the digital landscape.
As the world becomes increasingly data-driven, it is apparent that traditional data management tools need to catch up. Companies already require a way to collaborate across internal departments, and the need for external collaborations across organizations is only growing. In the ever-evolving landscape of data management, customers and companies alike will soon come to expect data that is accessible across platforms.
Organizations operating under dated siloed data structures are obstructed from the innovative solutions and efficient operations that stem from leveraging multiple data sources. This causes inefficiencies, misunderstandings, and missed opportunities for new solutions. As company leaders look to make holistic decisions impacting various stakeholders, siloed data can be severely limiting as it restricts department collaboration. However, composable, decentralized data solutions present a viable remedy to these issues without sacrificing the security or integrity of the data set.
What Is Composable, Decentralized Data?
Composable data is bespoke data architecture, built from the ground up with custom-built for each system or organization, while decentralized data means you do not necessarily have to own a given dataset to put it into one place. The benefits of this data management strategy are significant, but adopting this strategy can be difficult.
Adopting new initiatives not bogged down by legacy data silos is fairly straightforward and simple. But for organizations with years of poorly managed historical data, the effort required to adopt this new strategy is more significant. That being said, tools that automate the process of cleansing this kind of data can significantly benefit hastening the process.
The Beneficiaries of This Strategy
Once data is clean, components in a composable architecture must work independently without relying on one another for functionality. Financial services and the pharmaceutical industry are two of the biggest verticals taking on this strategy.
A notable amount of data naturally accumulates for the financial service industry and is used in pharma to describe things like drugs and patents. That data must be shared across multiple parties, a process machines can hasten by automating understanding of what the data means.
While some industries may adopt this process because they recognize the benefits of operating in a data-driven environment, others might be forced to take this more collaborative approach. For example, regulators might require pharmaceutical companies to implement this strategy to use shared research or test results to get new drugs approved, similar to what resulted in the COVID-19 vaccine during Operation Warp Speed.
This is also true for research-related work and academic settings. Access to particular research may need to be limited to a trusted learner network. Separately, students seeking to transfer their degrees or verify their academic credentials when applying to jobs could do so via a digital degree powered by distributed ledger technologies.
What we currently see as data management technologies evolve differs from the beginning of the World Wide Web. Where hyperlinks were the internet’s decentralized management systems, an identical situation is happening here, but instead of web pages, we are leveraging data.
What About Industries That Don’t Have an Incentive to Share?
For others, competitive advantages might force more collaborative management systems. Much of the big data that corporations have today is stored by staff vendors with little incentive to make data more interoperable, as that would make functionality less proprietary. However, as customers become more accustomed to collaborative environments, they will eventually demand that data be in more open formats.
We’ve seen this before with Microsoft Word, which once had a very proprietary way of representing file formats. But regulators combined with monopoly pressures forced the format to change from “.doc” to the open format “.docx,” enabling Word documents to be imported into any system that knows the standard. This change came from customers who wanted choices rather than the business incentive that industries like pharma have to share their data for better outcomes.
The same is valid for data. Companies use multiple SaaS providers, and there are many choices regarding how to manage credentials and CRM. But data is where the value comes from, so customers will likely demand that any application companies leverage can manage that content across platforms, a threat to companies like Salesforce that would like to keep that information proprietary.
See More: PCI DSS 4.0: Navigating New Compliance Requirements
Redefining Data Dynamics
All this to say, anywhere there is data sharing, we should seek to make it high-quality and accessible.
Soon-to-be archaic systems of centralized data management are susceptible to single points of failure and data breaches, a severe threat to the security and credibility of that information. But composable, decentralized data solutions empower organizations to scale in a secure manner that prioritizes the collaboration necessary for the next era of data management.
This next era is poised to shape the world of information technology with composable decentralized data at its forefront. Leaders across industries must come to understand that data is not merely a passive resource, but rather, it is a dynamic asset central to serving specific business needs.
As we move to more distributed data models, composable decentralized data is all the more attractive because of its agility. As data volumes grow and diverse data sources increase, organizations must remain on their toes and prepared to adapt to changing environments and circumstances. Blockchain technology’s foundation for composable decentralized data is a seamless path forward with tamper-proof records to build credibility in industries such as finance, healthcare, and others where data integrity and transparency are paramount. This agility and security, coupled with the collaborative nature of composable decentralized data models, highlight how this structure is a natural step forward for the future of data management.
While this type of composable, decentralized data management structure is used in niche ways for now, all data eventually needs to end up in this format, or it won’t be able to participate in the new data-driven world.
How can composable data help organizations with seamless collaboration and heightened security in the data-driven world? Let us know on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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