Chapter 3. Big Data Governance: Practicalities and Realities

According to data governance practitioner and Data Management Group founder John Adler, data governance is simply a mechanism to manage data risk. Because big data involves large amounts of unstructured data, there is no formula to ensure effective data governance in the big data sphere. And without it, companies can face a world of trouble.

In a panel at Strata + Hadoop World New York 2015, experts from Cloudera, Capital One, MasterCard, and CapTech Consulting met to discuss what it takes to implement a big data governance strategy.

The Importance of Big Data Governance

One of the defining differences between traditional data governance and big data governance is that big data governance is more concerned with how data is used and the context of that usage. This means trying to understand not only what the information is, but how to use it, including privacy concerns and ethical issues around the data.

According to Kristi Cunningham, Capital One’s vice president of enterprise data management (whose statements are a reflection of her broader experience and views, and not directly those of Capital One), Capital One is focused on applying the same principles to all data, whether it is little data, big data, hosted on-premises or in the cloud. The focus is on understanding the data, knowing where it ...

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