No question about it, we face an information tsunami. And many organizations do not yet have a coherent strategy to deal with all the new data that is surging their enterprises. Worse yet, when applications fail or slow down, they attempt to fix the problem by throwing more hardware at it – rather than dealing with the root cause of the issue – too much data. Most organizations are only just beginning to take the necessary steps to address these challenges and keep massive amounts of data from overwhelming their enterprise applications.
As part of my work with Unisphere Research/Information Today Inc., I recently had the opportunity to team with Informatica’s Application ILM team to develop and publish a survey that explored ILM awareness and implementations among 277 managers and professionals affiliated with the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG). (Full survey report available for download here.) The survey, which covers a range of organizations, looked at the opportunities and issues around application information lifecycle management, or ILM. ILM offers expedient – and badly needed – measures for properly defining, managing, and storing data. It encompasses the policies, processes, practices, and tools used to align the business value of information with the most appropriate and cost-effective IT infrastructure from the time information is conceived through its final disposition
The survey finds at this time that awareness of ILM as a strategy is low. Just under three out of 10 enterprises have adopted variations of ILM. Another 16 percent are considering such plans.
The survey confirms that the need for an ILM strategy is pressing. Growing volumes of transaction data are being digitally captured and stored, along with unstructured forms of data files such as email, video and graphics. Adding to this tsunami are multiple copies of all this data being stored throughout organizations. At the same time, increasingly tight mandates and regulations put the onus on organizations to maintain this data and keep it available for years to come.
Close to a third of enterprises now need to support more than a terabyte’s worth of data in their applications, but just as many respondents don’t have a grasp on the data volumes within their enterprise applications. Indeed, enterprises already are feeling the impact of uncontrolled data growth on overall performance. Nine out of 10 respondents say this is an issue, and only one out of four report they currently meet all service-level agreements.
Corporate systems are only going to be taxed more and more by huge surges of data moving through enterprises. Only a deliberate, well-thought-out, end-to-end strategy on how information is managed and retired will help keep these systems running up to par.
