Data Assessment - Phase One
The first phase of our data assessment service is to identify a number of data classes, the location and inferred ownership of unstructured files within a sample of the organisation’s estate. It is possible to classify files to a highly granular degree, however, at this stage typical data classes may include:
- Unusable or inaccessible formats e.g. tape and paper records
- Old or aged data e.g. everything older than X number of years
- Data belonging to a specific group e.g. HR, research teams or compliance
Once identified, you can then manage data classes in accordance with the relevant policy, including parameters such as how long a file should be retained and what level of classification it is required to be stored at.
Data Assessment - Phase Two
Organisation’s should document retention rules for all types of data to remain compliant with regulations such as GDPR and their own sector legislation. This assessment stage defines up to three candidate policies that can be applied to the sample files identified during the previous phase.
Policies may include:
- Level of importance
- Levels of security tier
- Access controls
Data Assessment - Phase Three
Whilst phases 1 and 2 of the data assessment will allude to the data volumes that are apparent within a business, this information will be used to inform storage architecture decisions such as:
- Where volumes of data may reside e.g. tiering and archiving
- Performance and access requirements
- Security and sovereignty considerations
Data Assessment - Phase Four
During this phase, the data assessment team considers the current data landscape alongside future requirements for data in the organisation and proposes a high-level target architecture. This proposal will cover matters such as:
- Technology choices: the cloud, on-premises and hybrid options
- Reference architectures: best practice for high availability, resilience and data protection
- Cost implications: storage, compute and ingress/egress charges
Data Assessment - Phase Five
The architecture and technology choices will inform the business case and the activity timelines for delivering a transformation plan. Include within this phase of the assessment are:
- Costed TCO for the future state and ROI calculations
- A high-level transformation plan, including costs and key milestones/dates
Data Assessment - Phase Six
The final stage of the assessment considers how files may be governed moving forward. Key outputs from this phase include:
- Proposed file governance processes
- Periodic reviews to discuss requirements, classes, policies and architectural choices.