In the data-driven world of the digital age, companies and organizations around the globe seek to harvest and analyze all types of data. Given the immense volume of information collected today, sharing and collaborating across enterprises can be a complex task. Data fabric is a newer concept that simplifies and integrates enterprise-wide data management. Data scientists and leaders in industries and organizations worldwide utilize this technology to deliver data across many endpoints spanning on-premise and multi-cloud environments.
As large enterprises today have information stored in data lakes, data silos, data warehouses, and other data sources, a data fabric connects all sources of data across the entire organization. The data fabric is an architecture and set of data services that detach information from physical implementation and provide access across multiple clouds, data centers, and edge systems.
Why use a data-fabric? With the arrival of the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, massive amounts of unstructured data, and increased analytics complexity, there is a greater need for flexible data management solutions. Data fabric is a single environment that weaves together data governance, associated services, and technologies to improve data management and analytics. Data fabrics help to accelerate digital transformation by developing an intricate web of information. Let’s look at the benefits of a data fabric.
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Data Fabric
Think of data fabric as a cloth that is woven together by many strands of material. To make this cloth, a weaver uses a loom to piece together each strand of fabric intricately. Alone, each piece can’t accomplish very much. However, once the pieces are woven together, a unified cloth can be spread out and used for various things. Similarly, data fabric technology weaves together information from different sources across entire organizations to form a cohesive information network. Anyone within the data fabric can have access to a host of data assets and faster insights. Simply stated, the purpose of data fabric is to create an easier way to share and analyze massive amounts of enterprise data across multiple endpoints.
The amount of information collected by industries and organizations is at unprecedented levels. As a result, data silos, warehouses, lakes, and other storage sources form complex data management systems that are hard to integrate and make collaboration very difficult. Data fabrics help unlock the big data through secure, shared access without the need for copies that can threaten ownership and integrity. Data fabrics are creating virtual data centers that allow access to the right data at the right time.
Benefits
The most significant benefit is that data fabrics speed up the handling and sharing of extensive data sets across multiple endpoints more quickly. Data can be more accessible with the seamless access of data silos and other storage sources across an entire environment. Data fabrics offer new solutions supporting the dynamic delivery of semantically enriched data. They allow businesses to escape the confounds of reactive workflows and create a resilient digital foundation. Data fabrics are helping to power countless business applications, AI, and analytics across entire enterprises.
The foremost challenge in data analytics today is the high volume and complexity of the data used. The agility and flexibility of data fabrics enable rapid access to information for enhanced analysis. Organizations today need to maintain their competitive edge by being able to exploit technology-enabled solutions in real time. A wide range of businesses from industry to mass transportation are benefiting from data fabric solutions.
Data fabrics are allowing enterprises to conduct preventative maintenance analysis and avoid downtime. With faster analysis and better information, they can follow up on customer sentiments and predict churn. They can also perform advanced predictive and prescriptive analytics to optimize products and processes. Additionally, real-time data allows organizations to monitor the markets and detect fraud or other abnormalities from a security standpoint.
From flexibility and scalability to real-time analysis, data fabrics create a unique data management ecosystem that offers a host of benefits and capabilities.
