Chief Data Officers need to maximize the value of data for their organizations. Providing the best quality data to make business decisions and making sure that data is defined and understood to be used the right way is essential, while also protecting the interests of the company and customers regarding sensitive data. To be successful, a CDO needs to know what data is in the environment and where it is. They need to provide high quality data for business use, identify data that needs to be protected, communicate data usage policies and regulations, and scale this effort to keep pace with the speed of data growth and business requirements.

BigID and Alation together provide a solution that enables data usage with deeper insight about the data. Alation’s data catalog promotes data culture for all users to find the data they need, and delivers insight about how the data is being used. BigID delivers insight about what the data is by identifying the type of data, sensitivity, privacy, security, and quality. Using BigID and Alation together, a CDO can run a data governance program with insight about what the data is and how it is being used.

Follow these 5 steps to enable data culture with governance and insight with BigID with Alation:

  1. Scan all data sources and types
  2. Identify sensitive data
  3. Establish data policies
  4. Classify and tag data at scale
  5. Enable data culture with privacy awareness

1. Scan All Data Sources and Types

BigID scans all data, including structured and unstructured data, from all data sources, providing a broad and comprehensive view of the data environment. BigID extends Alation’s breadth and reach by adding unstructured data sources for a complete view of all data sources in the modern environment.

2. Identify Sensitive Data

BigID applies machine learning to identify what and where the data is. By automating advanced classification, correlation, cluster analysis, BigID delivers a scalable solution to identify what data is sensitive and determine where it is. ML identifies sensitive data to protect, and also identifies redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data requiring remediation to take action on the data using BigID apps.

3. Establish Data Policies

Admins establish policy labels in BigID to recognize data affected by privacy regulations and policies. BigID’s metadata exchange tags sensitive data sets with policies in Alation for data users to be aware of usage guidelines. Admins can easily update policies as needed to remain current with business practices and legal requirements.

4. Classify and Tag Data at Scale

Expedite and amplify data stewardship for Alation’s metadata catalog by automating classification and data tagging, eliminating significant manual tagging once required by information stewards. BigID identifies and adds classification and data context to know what the data is, adding relevant policy tags. Information Stewards working in Alation benefit from a productivity boost with BigID’s automated classification at scale to help populate the Alation data catalog. Data Citizens benefit from increased tagging for better data context and trust

5. Enable Data Culture with Privacy Awareness

Data users in Alation benefit from BigID privacy awareness as data users see tags and warnings to know if data contains sensitive information and is affected by privacy policies. Warnings are visible both on catalog pages and as pop-ups in Alation’s SQL query writing tool, Compose. Data culture is improved as BigID delivers advanced context and relevant data privacy, protection, and business policy restrictions for responsible data use in Alation.

With BigID and Alation integration, CDOs using Alation to build a data culture at their organization will benefit from BigID’s advanced context and classification to enrich data intelligence and add a privacy lens for responsible data governance.

Schedule a demo to see how BigID’s machine learning will add classification and privacy context to your Alation data catalog for governance.