For states, data management ‘more important than ever’

Government agencies have a “bigger obligation than ever,” to protect their data, Tom Kennedy, the vice president of public sector at data protection firm Veritas, says in a new video interview.

“[Managing government data is going to be more and more complex, especially as governments] are getting more aggressive around migrating workloads to the cloud,” Kennedy says in the interview, recorded at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers’ annual conference in San Diego. “A robust data strategy is more important than ever.”

When Kennedy works with state government agencies looking to do a better job at managing data, he recommends gaining visibility into the data first and then channeling that visibility into action.

“We’ve done a lot of studies around the deluge of data and some of the statistics are pretty amazing,” Kennedy says. “First off, only 15 percent of most agencies is really business critical. Being able to understand what is business critical and handle that accordingly is really important.”

Another 50 percent of that data, though, he says, is “dark data” — meaning agencies don’t necessarily know what that it is. Another third of data is redundant or obsolete. By understanding their data better, Kennedy says, governments can make better decisions.

“The first [goal] is visibility — understanding what you have — so then you can take action and assume control,” Kennedy says. “That will ultimately lead to reducing risk and saving money over time.”

Kennedy on GDPR and data regulations:

This video was produced by StateScoop and presented by Veritas.