Chapter 5
Virtualizing User Data
IN THIS CHAPTER
- Understanding the importance of data for users and organizations
- Understanding organizational, legal, and regulatory requirements around data retention and discovery
- Exploring consumer data virtualization solutions
- Exploring corporate data virtualization solutions
- Making data more resilient and available
- Enhancing data collaboration
When asked to name their greatest asset, many organizations will claim that it is their employees, but what they really care about is their data. Without data, no organization in the world would be able to do business. Whether the data is valuable intellectual property, invoices, personnel records, application data, configuration data, contracts, or any of the other possibilities, data is crucial to a business; and so, therefore, is the manner in which users interact with and leverage the data. Outside of the corporate world, data is also important to individuals—wedding-day photos, that video of baby’s first steps, or Chapter 5 of a book you are collaborating on and can’t afford to lose because you are already behind schedule. As our world becomes ever more mobile, users want quick and reliable access to their corporate and personal data no matter where they are, and in this chapter you learn about technologies that make data easily available to users in a transparent fashion and increase the data’s security.
