COMMISSIONED: When it comes to enterprise IT infrastructure, metadata is the secret asset most people don’t think about.
Think of it as an invisible hand guiding the movement, organization, and accessibility of your data universe. It’s metadata – the data that describes your data – that enables enterprises to transform chaos into opportunity.
Tragically, metadata is often underutilized, but that paradigm is changing. Businesses are beginning to uncover its extraordinary potential for optimizing workflows, enhancing decision-making, and gaining a competitive edge.
Metadata is essentially a summary of your data. It’s the label on the jar that tells you what’s inside without having to open it. Scaling this concept to enterprise IT, metadata becomes the roadmap that helps IT teams identify, locate, and efficiently utilize vast amounts of information.
To put its value into perspective, research published in IDC’s “The State of Enterprise Data” report in 2022 shows that businesses waste 20-30 percent of their time searching for information. That’s nearly a full day each week spent navigating disjointed file systems and digital silos. Even worse, 60 percent of organizations admit to not knowing where their critical data resides according to Gartner’s 2023 “Metadata Management in the Digital Age,” report, something which can impact compliance, productivity, and overall decision-making.
Metadata is more than a useful tool; it’s a strategic enabler for transformation across all dimensions of enterprise IT. Here’s how it drives innovation for modern organizations:
– Better visibility: With metadata, your team knows exactly where every piece of data resides, reducing the time spent on manual searches.
– Deeper context: Metadata reveals how data points are connected, offering insights that can drive smarter decisions and uncover new opportunities.
– Faster execution: By indexing data in meaningful ways, metadata accelerates workflows and analytics, helping businesses move from idea to action more quickly.
And the beauty of metadata? It’s self-enhancing. Over time, it can grow richer, adding contextual layers that evolve with your infrastructure.
Why metadata is essential right now
Several technology trends make metadata more critical than ever. AI and analytics thrive on well-curated, contextualized data, and metadata is foundational for delivering clean datasets. Additionally, hybrid and multi-cloud ecosystems have introduced new challenges around data discovery and access. Metadata becomes the glue that ensures these diverse systems work cohesively.
What’s more, figures from Statista’s Global Data Growth Forecast in 2024 suggest the rate of data growth is staggering, with global data volumes increasing by 23 percent annually. Managing this complexity hinges on having an intelligent metadata strategy in place.
Recognizing these challenges, Dell Technologies has introduced PowerScale MetadataIQ, a cutting-edge tool designed for today’s complex data landscapes. MetadataIQ is a global metadata management solution incorporating the ElasticSearch database and the Kibana visualization dashboard. It enables indexing and querying of combined metadata from multiple geographically distributed clusters.
This isn’t just another tool for managing your files; MetadataIQ redefines how enterprises think about and use metadata:
– Fast filesystem search: Enable search of data on a PowerScale cluster without having to do a real-time tree walk.
– Geographically distributed search: Access data across PowerScale deployments by searching a combined metadata store.
– System metadata extraction: Allow customers to export metadata to external tools (e.g., message queues, data catalogs).
– Classify and protect sensitive data: Detect and tag sensitive information, applying appropriate governance.
– Lifecycle management: Use system- and user-defined metadata to identify data assets for tiering and archival.
– Create datasets to train AI/ML/GenAI models: Search for relevant unstructured data by querying system- and user-defined metadata.
Simply put, MetadataIQ aligns with the evolving needs of enterprises, helping them find, manage, and utilize their data with unprecedented speed and precision.
Why it matters for enterprises
Imagine this scenario – your pharmaceutical company needs to analyze clinical trial data spread across multiple continents. Without metadata management, this process could take weeks. With MetadataIQ, you can visualize and analyze relevant metadata in minutes. That’s game-changing efficiency, particularly in industries reliant on agility and innovation.
The time savings and precision offered by MetadataIQ enable organizations to focus on higher-value tasks, such as developing data-driven applications and executing mission-critical projects.
Think of metadata as your ultra-efficient librarian – it knows where every piece of data “lives,” tags it for relevance, and even makes suggestions for what you might need. Unlike humans, it doesn’t need coffee breaks or days off.
Remember the agony of hunting for a lost file from last quarter? Metadata just liberated 19 of those wasted minutes.
Metadata isn’t just an IT utility anymore; it’s becoming a business-critical resource. With tools like MetadataIQ, enterprises can harness metadata to accelerate their AI initiatives, optimize hybrid cloud strategies, and scale in harmony with expanding data volumes.
With innovation through metadata, businesses aren’t just storing data – they’re unleashing the full potential of every byte. Tools like PowerScale MetadataIQ act as both a compass and a map, ensuring organizations stay ahead in an increasingly data-driven world.
To learn how Dell PowerScale and MetadataIQ can redefine your enterprise IT setup, visit us at www.delltechnologies.com/powerscale.
Brought to you by Dell Technologies.