What is Data Management?

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What is Data Management?

Data Management is a broad field of study, but essentially is the process of managing data as a resource that is valuable to an organization or business. One of the largest organizations that deal with data management, DAMA (Data Management Association), states that data management is the process of developing data architectures, practices and procedures dealing with data and then executing these aspects on a regular basis.

There are many topics within data management, some of the more popular topics include data modeling, data warehousing, data movement, database administration and data mining.

Data Modeling

Data modeling is first creating a structure for the data that you collect and use and then organizing this data in a way that is easily accessible and efficient to store and pull the data for reports and analysis. In order to create a structure for data, it must be named appropriately and show a relationship with other data. It also must fit appropriately in a class. For instance, if you have a database of media, you might have a hierarchal structure of objects that include photos, videos, and audio files. Within each category, you can classify objects accordingly.

Data Warehousing

Data warehousing is storing data effectively so that it can be accessed and used efficiently. Different organizations collect different types of data, but many organizations use their data the same way, in order to create reports and analyze their data to make quality business decisions. Data warehousing is usually an organizational wide repository of data, however for very large corporations in can encompass just one office or one department.

Data Movement

Data movement is the ability to move data from one place to another. For instance, data needs to be moved from where it is collected to a database and then to an end user, but this process takes quite a bit of logistic insight. Not only do all hardware, applications and data collected need to be compatible with one another, they must also be able to be classified, stored and accessed with ease within an organization. Moving data can be very expensive and can require lots of resources to make sure that data is moved efficiently, that data is secure in transit and that once it reaches the end user it can be used effectively either to be printed out as a report, saved on a computer or sent as an email attachment.

Database Administration

Database administration is extremely important in managing data. Every organization or enterprise needs database administrators that are responsible for the database environment. Database administrators are usually given the authority to do the following tasks that include recoverability, integrity, security, availability, performance and development & testing support.

Recoverability is usually defined as a way to store data as a back up and then test the back ups to make sure that they are valid. The task of integrity means that data that is pulled for certain records or files are in fact valid and have high data integrity. Data integrity is extremely important especially when creating reports or when data is used for analysis. If you have data that is deemed invalid, your results will be worthless.

Database security is an essential task for database administrators. For instance, database administrators are usually in charge of giving clearance and access to certain databases or trees in an organization. Another important task is availability. Availability is defined as making sure a database is up and running. The more up time, usually the higher level of productivity. Performance is related to availability, it is considered getting the most out of the hardware, applications and data as possible. Performance is usually in relation to an organizations budget, physical equipment and resources.

Finally, a database administrator is usually involved in database development and testing support. Database administrators are always trying to push the envelope, trying to get more use out of the data and add better performing and more powerful applications, hardware and resources to the database structure. A database that is administered correctly is not only a sign of competent database administrator, but it also means that all end users have a huge resource in the data that is available. This makes it easy to create reports, conduct analysis and make high quality decisions based on data that is collected and used within the organization.

Data Mining

Another important topic regarding data management is data mining. Data mining is a process in which large amounts of data are sifted through to show trends, relationships, and patterns. Data mining is a crucial component to data management because it exposes interesting information about the data being collected. It is important to note that data is primarily collected so it can be used to find these patterns, relationships and trends that can help a business grow or create profit.

While there are many topics within data management, they all work together from the beginning where data is collected to the end of the process where it is sifted through; analyzed and formatted where specialists can then make quality decisions based upon it.

Source : TechFaqs