For some businesses, especially those who own a small enterprise, taking the time out to create a data management plan is a daunting task that gives you low returns. You might feel that your IT or DBA team performs well without a plan; however, this can have drastic effects in the long term.
Why Should You Invest Time In Database Management Planning?
In the absence of a long-term database management plan with scheduled audits, your team is at risk when it comes to detecting errors in data, under-or overutilizing security blind spots and tools. In addition, most of your team’s most general errors can be prevented by applying the best database management practices. Thus, if you work with a company like Corodata, where records can be stored online, you will have a better understanding of how data is protected and managed.
Why planning is needed for your DBMS?
There are some general database problems that businesses tend to face today, and with the help of few database management tips, you can curb and resolve them. Planning is vital as it will help you streamline the different aspects of your business.
Given below are some of the key problems businesses faces when it comes to the absence of extensive database management planning-
1.The data is hard to find and frequently goes missing:-
For quick and simple access to data, the information assets should be managed well. If the DBA team faces trouble locating data, your information assets are likely housed in disparate and insulated systems where data access is limited, commonly known as data silos. Data silos can take place under several circumstances.
However, the following are the three primary reasons why they take place:-
- The company’s culture- When the teams, individual employees, and departments start to work in competition or, in some rare cases, animosity, the staff tend to retain data to themselves over working together.
- Management hierarchies- In big companies, the staff is separated into several layers of data management and staff specialized for specific tasks. Under such situations, the data tends to be kept in small teams to not pass down to employees who need access to this data for their daily work.
- Barriers to technology-There are different situations where separate departments function with the help of different software. These applications are not able to share data; neither can they be cross-referenced. This is a frequent issue observed in hospital databases where different facilities deploy diverse electronic health records and cannot share the data of their patients easily.
Experienced DBAs state that data silos present a very big and overarching issue that is likely to need vital cultural shifts. However, there are some key steps to help you to handle this problem-
- Firstly, identify the systems and processes that are presently housed in the silos. This helps you to collect data about primary systems and the people who use them. It helps you to understand the data sets.
- What are the data sets that your staff regard as the source of authentic data? In case you have multiple data sets located in many systems, you must find ways to combine this data. A professional tip to take care of this issue is to create a quarterly or a biannual data management audit for health. When you audit your information, it will help you measure the database security, the quality of the lifecycle, and data flow seamlessly.
2.The data is complex to share:-
If you cannot share the information in a valuable manner, it will not help you too much. Many of the staff will need access to several databases to get the information sought for daily tasks across the company. Data sharing is a vital component of your team’s success, and when you can share data, ensure that you store it in a format that is uniform under one schema.
It would help if you took your time to create a data-sharing procedure to be a part of your data management plan. You should sit with the team and ask them relevant questions to comprehend the information you require for sharing across different departments and project leads. Professionals from esteemed database administration and management company, RemoteDBA.com recommend you should pay attention to the following questions-
- What kind of data is your business generating?
- Who needs this data access?
- How will this data be accessed or shared?
- Does this data contain any confidential or private information?
- How can this data access be managed or restricted?
If you address the above questions and look for the data you require to share in disparate systems, you would need to seek a way to integrate your tools so that the data can be streamlined into a single database. There are products available in the market that sync data between these applications without development and code. With them, your business data syncs automatically after short intervals on the activity that is within the connected system.
3.The data is low in quality, and duplicate entries are found-
If the data is low in quality, this can exacerbate data silos in the company. If your employees do not feel that the data is trustworthy in the primary system, they will turn to spreadsheets and personal tools to maintain their own credible data sets.
The sales team, for instance, must have access to uniform data. If the client’s contact information is incorrect and missing, the team will fail to close the deal. This is frustrating for the sales team as it will hamper their performance, and they lose trust in the database system.
Conclusion | Why Should You Invest Time In Database Management Planning?
Professionals in database management and administration say that businesses should, with the consultation of professional DBAs, create an extensive plan for database management to avert the above- mentioned issues. They state that data security and its compliances are key issues and concerns in the absence of a well-extensive plan. They further add that you cannot get rid of the above database issues in one night. However, with credible professional DBA guidance, you can effectively create the right plan to boost your business operations’ database performance and utility.