Brands engage the services of information security professionals to ensure the security of both their information and system. However, doing this without the input of data architects may turn out to be an exercise in futility.
It has always been the focus of governments, businesses, and individuals to protect their information even before the coming of the age of computers. Highly sensitive information was marked as “TOP SECRET,” “SECRET,” and “CONFIDENTIAL,” while some organizations go to the length of adding a stamped seal on paper.
All these were measures used to indicate and also maintain the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of the information for the intended recipient. Technological advancements have caused us to jettison some of these practices but that does not in any way mean that the security of information is no longer of immense importance.
In this era of big data where corporations scramble for information and cybercriminals are upping their tech-savviness all in an effort to lay their hands on your data for obvious reasons, contemplating such an idea would even have been suicidal. The quantity of data and information you handle on a day-to-day basis has tremendously increased also and apart from information security professionals, it’s unthinkable for you not to have data architects as well.
Data architects are very instrumental in envisioning and creating the framework that your business will use for handling these huge volumes of data, to deliver available, quality, and reliable information to your organization. Without the expertise role data architects bring to bear in the management of the different range of data sources from wide and varied locations, you cannot have been able to effectively bring order to what can often be a chaotic data environment.
Your business information lifecycle has five stages which are creating, processing, storing, transmitting, and destroying. Usually, it’s at the creation and processing stages of data that you experience so much increase in the volume, velocity, and variety.
This experience can utterly overwhelm, stress, and reduce you to a pulp if not handled proficiently. It can affect you in such a way that you become completely confused and at your wits end on how to begin the process of onboarding the increasing volume without the technical knowhow of data architects.
Whether you choose to like it or not, it has got to a situation where regulatory compliance demands on organizations across the globe have boiled down to the fact that knowing what data your organization is responsible for, where it is, and how it is maintained, has become an issue of top priority for businesses. This has brought about your dire need for data architects.
The role of data architects in your organization will also be naturally extended to designing your business data framework so as to support information security professionals in protecting the CIA of the data. It’s a long-held belief that data is not equal and rightly so.
For this reason, there is an absolute need for your data to be classified as the case may be. This will go a long way in ensuring that your data is protected appropriately.
The training of data architects confers on them the technical knowhow of the understanding of the types of data that require to be protected and where they can be found. When they work alongside information security professionals, they enable the much-needed sync and flow.
It’s the duty of your information security professionals to come up with security policies for data across the organization. They also determine the data that will require extra protection, such as encryption.
Having your data architects working alongside your information security professionals has the added advantage of not only ensuring that the appropriate data is encrypted, but also that the encrypted data will still be able to maintain the essence, quality, and availability of information.
There is no iota of doubt to the fact that your organization’s information security function needs the unalloyed input of data architects and vice versa. This will to a very large extent enhance the protection of the CIA of data and information throughout the length and breadth of the organization by creating security plans and measures, maintain database integrity, and plan for natural disasters and cyberattacks.
