How VARs Can Help In The Dark Data Balancing Act

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

The delicate balance between risk and opportunity afforded by dark data must be weighed carefully, an effort that might be assisted by VARs.

Consulting and market research company Gartner describes dark data as “information assets that organizations collect, process, and store in the course of their regular business activity, but generally fail to use for other purposes.”

According to a SearchDataManagement.com Tech Target article, as more and more structured, unstructured and semi-structured data has accumulated in organizations, particularly because of the adoption of Big Data applications, dark data has come to denote operational data that is left unanalyzed. It may also be used to identify data that is no longer accessible due to storage on obsolete devices.

While the primary focuses regarding such data have been ways that it could provide an economic opportunity for companies that can mine it for value, dark data also has a number of hidden risks associated with it.

Computer World shares an article, originally published by CIO magazine, in which Ed Tittle addresses these hidden risks associated with dark data and how to avoid them. Tittle writes, “As with many potentially rewarding and intriguing information assets, organizations must also be aware that the dark data they possess — or perhaps more chillingly, the dark data about them, their customers and their operations that's stored in the cloud, outside their immediate control and management — can pose risks to their continued business health and well-being.”

Tittle addresses five significant risks associated with dark data, and then provides some solutions for mitigating those risks. VARs can help with the mitigation process, in many instances. Among the major risks are legal and regulatory risks, intelligence risks, risk of reputation, loss of opportunities, and the consequences of open-ended exposure.

To mitigate these risks, Tittle proposes creating ongoing inventory and assessment of data, creating strong encryption as a barrier to improper access, proper policies for retention and safe disposal of data, and routing auditing of dark data for security purposes.

Essentially, organizations must individually balance dark data’s potential value with its potential risk in order to achieve the most productivity and profitability. And VARs can help by providing services to help mitigate the risks while increasing the value of mining the available data sets.