Welcome to the October eNewsletter from Storage magazine,which includes a look at some recent research into data governance undertaken by Quest Software and ESG. Business leaders are apparently struggling not only to make sense of their data, but to locate and use it in the first place, with 42% of survey respondents saying at least half of their data was what the researchers describe as 'dark data' - retained by the organisation, but unused, unmanageable and unfindable.

This is not just unstructured data we're talking about here, it is a whole new subset of business information that is being generated, reproduced, moved around - but ultimately not exploited by the organisation that owns it.

While the IT industry in general continues to trumpet the idea of data as 'the new oil', the idea that large quantities of that data are in effect invisible - and therefore impossible to act upon - is a sobering one indeed. As Patrick Nichols of Quest comments in the article: "Businesses can't utilise data, much less optimise it for the benefit of their organisation, if they can't actually see it."

When people lack access to high-quality data and the confidence and guidance to use it properly, it's virtually impossible for them to reach their desired outcomes. Our industry has a duty to focus on these issues going forward, in order to continue to add genuine value to the organisations we represent.

David Tyler, Editor
Storage magazine

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