The importance of data to businesses has grown substantially thanks to both the rise in the amount of it and the realisation that it can have a significant impact on how the business operates.
In essence data is information that has been translated into a form that more convenient to move or process. It is commonly information that is translated into binary digital information, relative to computers and transmission media.
Managing data is an important factor that should be given serious strategic focus in order to effectively build a data driven organisation.
Data life cycle management is a policy based approach that aims to manage the flow of information system’s data from creation and initial storage to the time it becomes obsolete and is deleted.
Data can exist in numerous forms such as numbers or text, as bits and bytes that is stored in electronic memory.
Data can be analysed using various tools to gain insight from it, these tools can come in the shape of in-database analytic engines, or with streaming analytics tools such as Spark.
Additionally, data can also be structured and unstructured.
