What is Data Lineage Important?
Data Lineage describes the origin, progress, and location of data over time. Aggregation and consumption of data from disparate sources have evolved at an exponential phase. In the good old days, data originated and got reported within organizations, today data is generated from a variety of internal/external sources and is transformed at various stages and applications before reaching the reporting or the final layer.
Data is becoming more and more valuable, business application are integrated with multiple internal and external systems to extract value out of it. Big data and cloud-based system have given the opportunity to extract, store and process these vast amounts of data.
The Challenge:
Along with it comes the challenge of tracing data origin and transformation. Industry segments which are governed by a number of regulations often face this challenge. Example: For the banking industry to track and monitor an instance of a fraudulent transaction, the team has to drill through multiple applications present internally within the organization as well as the third party systems. Oftentimes, the data gets untraceable leaving behind loopholes for fraudulent transactions and loss of reputation. In large conglomerates, tracking data back to its origin can become very critical to identify and resolve the issues.
Since business applications have multipoint internal and external systems integration, its getting nearly impossible to ascertain the consistency and data integrity. Such transformed data cannot be leveraged for its intended purpose. Bad data quality can lead to inaccurate and slow decision-making. To make better business decisions, one needs a holistic view of clean and confirmed data. Lack of clarity in data sources makes users not to leverage the information. This demands a better data tracking mechanism to effectively utilize the data.
The Solution:
The solution to this is to have data governance process, which is the overall management of data integrity, uniformity, and accuracy. And the first step to achieve it, is by visualizing the existing data lineage.
Benefits of Maintaining Data Lineage:
- Track the golden source of every critical data element
- Provide a visual flow of data across applications and layers
- Analyze and validate the integrity of data
- Build new systems or upgrade them with clear extracting layers
- Visual tool for impact analysis.
About Bluenet:
Bluenet provides Digital Transformation, Data & Analytics, IT Talent Management, and Managed Services to various organizations. Our practitioners work across many industries to deliver solutions that impact our clients' growth, brand, and differentiated customer experience. Our culture enables us to attract and retain great talent. We have deep technology skills to enable key business processes. Founded in 2004, we are headquartered in Tampa (USA). Our other office is located in Izmir, Turkey.