Almost every single industry has been revolutionized to at least some degree by data processing. Whether you manage a local restaurant or a massive distributorship, there’s a good chance that you’ve recently made several decisions based on the availability of data that you previously lacked.
Fewer people are paying attention to where their data is coming from, however. In fact, business owners who rely on databases are likely to accept everything they read as the truth. Unfortunately, they don’t realize that there are certain coding tolerances involved with collecting information on any digital device.
In some cases, an insecure system can actually suffer from bogus information as well. That makes data lineage extremely important to ensure that you are getting the most accurate numbers possible.
Implementing a Data Lineage Plan
Quite a few people are probably asking the question “what is Data Lineage” because, at the moment, few organizations are investing much into this field. That’s quite a shame considering how much promise it shows for those who need to check the quality of the numbers they’re getting.
Data lineage is essentially the life cycle that every piece of digital information you collect goes through. This includes where the data comes from, how it got to the point that it’s now at and where it’s currently being stored. As soon as organizations start to track this life cycle, they’re going to see how different pipelines influence the path their information takes.
Managers might come across discreet files, reports and even database records that they didn’t realize were being employed in the process. Some companies may use an ETL system or even more esoteric technologies. Data analysts can use this life cycle map to ensure that everything is being handled in the most efficient way possible.
Larger organizations have traditionally been the only people interested in reviewing these histories. That means few automated tools were developed to handle the task. Any company that was interested in implementing this kind of policy would likely have the resources to do so by hand.
However, tracking data lineage manually is almost impossible in today’s world. Small business owners certainly can’t implement a manual system, and today’s larger companies won’t want to. Fortunately, you can automate the process and make it much more manageable.
Automatic Data Lineage Trackers
Frameworks like Node.js and Ruby make tracking data stored in MongoDB databases a breeze. Since these programming languages are widely understood and very well documented, any organization that already has a MongoDB system deployed shouldn’t have any trouble implementing an automated lineage tracker.
By extension, any NoSQL database program can be used this way to at least some degree. The situation is a bit more complicated for those who might not have built their data handling equipment around an open-source architecture.
Companies that have a wide array of different technologies in use don’t have to worry, however. Automatic third-party utilities are now on the market, which can parse data coming into the system from a wide array of different sources. While many of these are technically closed-source, they’re still built with open-source components. This should prove beneficial to those who use physical bare metal servers powered by Unix-based operating systems.
Building Databases with History Tracking in Mind
IT departments that are working on new database deployments are able to build lineage trackers into the system from the ground up. That being said, it’s not a good idea to simply select the first integrated database architecture your technicians come across.
Back in the day, countless technologists invested heavily in the dBASE and FoxPro platforms from companies like Ashton-Tate. While they might have been one of the big software vendors along with Microsoft and Lotus in those days, that firm later went bust. Even Lotus isn’t around any longer.
That’s left countless organizations with their data stored in arrays running on 30-year-old unsupported code simply because they wanted to make it easier to track their lineage. Rather than go this route, look for something that’s built on well-established technologies that won’t soon vanish.
Many database systems that have been around for a number of years are starting to work with data lineage tools, so this choice may not be too difficult. Keep in mind that SQL technology has been around since the 1970s, for instance, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down.
While the proliferation of tools to track data lineage might be interesting, it’s the benefits of them that should interest small business owners.
The Hidden Benefits of Tracking Data History
When you find out where a majority of your data is coming from, you’ll know what areas of your business need to be shored up. A faulty marketing campaign, for instance, will be much more obvious once you’ve tracked the origin point of every last piece of information.
Your IT department staffers will know right away when something seems awry. Whether there’s been a glitch causing mathematical errors or a bad actor has tampered with vital datatypes, your crews will spot the problem before it becomes a major issue.
Bad data can cost billions depending on the scale of your operation, so any investment in the field could be looked at as a net cost saver in the long run. Considering that your IT personnel might even be able to streamline and automate some workflows as a result of insights provided by data lineage information, you certainly owe it to your company to look into the field.
