Introducing Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) as a Comprehensive, Cloud-Native, and Cloud-First Approach to Data Management
Data is the new gold, the new oil, or whatever. In the cloud, you only own the data, but not the applications, systems, or networks anymore. Data is essential for Digital Transformation. There is so much data that is sprawling that it is hard to keep control of it. And, within the SaaS and PaaS tenants, data is what belongs to the tenant. Many organizations fail in managing this data sprawl and implement appropriate Data Governance.
Data Is Ubiquitous: Supporting the Reality of Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Environments
Data is everywhere. It resides in many different places. Protecting, governing, managing, and, last but not least, using data requires the ability to have comprehensive management across the entire breadth of tools, data lakes, databases, etc. involved. Informatica uses the claim of “cloud-first, multi-hybrid” for describing this scenario and their new solution, IDMC, the Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud. It is about supporting the cloud-first strategies, but also the fact that most organizations face both multi-cloud and hybrid environments. It is about having solutions that help to get a grip on data, regardless of where it resides, and about leveraging the potential and value of that data for the sake of the business.
Informatica IDMC is the successor of Informatica IDP (Intelligent Data Platform), delivered via the IICS (Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services). It is a cloud-native implementation of a very wide range of services for handling virtually any aspect of the broader Data Management field, from Data Discovery to delivering a 360-degree view of the data. Informatica has integrated more than 250 services into this new offering.
The Target: One Cloud to Manage all Data, Across all Clouds and Beyond
Informatica positions IDMC as one of the central clouds, such as Infrastructure Clouds (like AWS, Azure, GCP, and others), Application Clouds with their platform approach (such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Oracle, SAP, and others), and other types of clouds delivering the foundation for critical business and IT capabilities.
Informatica places IDMC in the center, like a spider in the web – the cloud that helps to manage the data from all other clouds. Considering the essential role of data for the success of businesses, this is a valid perspective.
The Need for Data Management and Governance
There is, without any doubt, a need for reclaiming control of corporate data. Most organizations today don’t know (exactly) which data they have and where it resides. This is a challenge for both utilizing the data (“the new gold”) and for compliance and data security. Thus, an approach that helps in getting a grip on data is essential.
With the IDMC, Informatica positions itself as the one-stop-shop solution that delivers all the services around Data Management from a single source. And Informatica delivers these solutions in an integrated, cloud-first platform built on modern microservices-based architecture. That makes Informatica IDMC a product that raises the bar in the broader Data Management market and is worth further analysis. While such complex, integrated solutions also come with their own challenges (does someone really need 260 different services?), IDMC’s modular approach allows customers to pick the parts they want to focus on first.
Independent of specific products, organizations must invest in the field of Data Management and Data Governance to leverage the value of the data they own and to mitigate the risk of failing in data management and security. Informatica’s IDMC is of specific interest for large organizations looking for a centralized, comprehensive solution covering a range of deployment models and integrations to existing data.