Gain Control of Data No Matter Where It Is with Microsoft Purview

It often seems like we’re drowning in data these days. Data is generated at a pace never seen before. In 2020, each person created an average of 1.7 MB of data every single second.

Data now gets into the zettabytes, a quantity that most people don’t even have a reference for. The data explosion is a challenge for businesses that are also generating significant amounts of data every day. This is data that needs to be protected and accounted for, no matter what platform or device it may reside on.

Often, data privacy and compliance are concerns when it comes to setting up technology systems to protect and track data. But collecting data to better operate your business is also critical to continued growth.

This includes data such as lead activities and actions and granular sales data. Making this data as well as personnel records, customer information, marketing files, and more easily accessible and shareable can seem a near-impossible task.

One solution that is specifically designed for “data wrangling” is Microsoft Purview. This service can help you gain control of your data, no matter which platform it is stored on, and give you visibility, easy access, and uniform security.

We’ll go through the basics of the solution, and how it may benefit your data security, compliance, and operational efficiency.

What Is Microsoft Purview?

Microsoft Purview is a unified data governance service. The service helps organizations manage all data, across multiple spaces.

This includes data stored:

• On-premises
• In multi-cloud environments
• In Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications

With the move to the cloud, companies have lost cohesion in their data oversight processes. There are different systems in different cloud storage tools, which differ from those used for on-premises data.

Microsoft Purview is designed to bring all that data back together and give you a holistic view of your entire information environment that is updated in real-time.

You sign up for the service through a Microsoft Azure account. Once you sign up for the cloud-based service, you can register all your data sources.

Your data will remain where it is located, but Microsoft Purview will store a copy of its metadata along with a reference to the data source location. This metadata is indexed to make data sources easily discoverable via a search.

Microsoft Purview has three main areas:

• Data Map: You can use the data map as a comprehensive visual to view all your data assets and their relationships.
• Data Catalog: Browse and search all your data assets easily, with a system that uses business-friendly terms and data classification.
• Data Estate Insights: Get an overview that allows you to discover the types of data you have and where that data is.

What Are the Main Benefits of Microsoft Purview?

Better Compliance

Just about all companies have at least one, if not more, data privacy regulations that they need to comply with. Whether you’re a medical facility subject to HIPAA or an online retailer that needs to comply with the GDPR, data privacy is vital.

It’s estimated that every employee has access to about 11 million files. That may seem like a staggering number but just think about all the data generated or captured by an organization each day and how it accumulates.

Keeping all those cloud and on-premises files accounted for so you can ensure data privacy compliance is one of the things that Microsoft Purview enables. It allows organizations to easily detect sensitive content across all environments so proper precautions can be taken.

Apply Consistent Data Loss Prevention

Using Microsoft Purview allows you to apply uniform data loss prevention policies more easily for all your sensitive information. This includes various endpoints, apps, and on-premises systems.

You can use the tool to prevent unauthorized sharing, file transfers, or use in certain environments. Alerts can also be set up that identify when data security policies are being challenged.

End-to-end eDiscovery

It’s estimated that approximately 20 percent of the workweek is spent just searching out information. This includes files that someone knows exist somewhere in the organization, but can’t figure out where.

The eDiscovery feature of Microsoft Purview is a benefit to any type of organization. Legal professionals and internal investigations, especially, can distill down mountains of data in less time to locate what’s relevant to them.

The mapping and search features in the service allow a person to search all data sources at one time, rather than having to conduct multiple searches over several different data locations.

Automated Data Organization

Once you’ve connected your data sources, Microsoft Purview does the metadata gathering and management automatically. It will also classify data using your own systems, sensitivity labels, or built-in and custom classifiers.

The unified data map is created by the system for you as it distills the data and maps out each location and relationship.

Gain Control of Data No Matter Where It Is with Microsoft Purview

It often seems like we’re drowning in data these days.

The data explosion is a challenge for businesses who are generating significant amounts of data every day.

This is data that needs to be protected and accounted for, no matter where it resides.

What Is Microsoft Purview?

Microsoft Purview is a unified data governance service.

It helps organizations manage all data, across multiple spaces (on-premises, multi-cloud, SaaS)

What Are the Main Benefits of Microsoft Purview?

• Better Compliance
• Apply Consistent Data Loss Prevention
• End-to-end eDiscovery
• Automated Data Organization

Need Help Taking That First Step in Data Management?

Need Help Taking That First Step in Data Management?

You don’t have to figure this all out yourself. We’re here to help! The business technology experts at X-Centric IT Solutions can answer all your questions about Microsoft Purview or another application and guide you to better data management.

Schedule a consultation today!