Structure the unstructured data

CHENNAI: With the amount of information flowing increasing at an appalling rate, managing them has become a crisis. Ironically, only 20 percent of data in any organization is structured, rest remains unstructured. The alarming fact is that these unstructured data is integral for any organization.Â

CIOs in rapt attention to the panel discussion on 'Managing unstructured data'

These and some interesting facts were revealed at the CIOL Enterprise Connect networking event held at Chennai on May 14 for some of the top CIOs of the region. The networking sessions involved

a panel discussion on how to manage the unstructured data in their organization.

Speaking about the same, B Rajagopal of SAP India remarked that rarely has any topic engendered so much of agreement yet so little progress has been made on it. According to the CIOs only 20 percent of data in their organization are structured, rest remains unstructured. The alarming fact is that these unstructured data, which is any data lying

unorganized is integral for any organization. 






According to Gartner, white-collar workers will spend anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of their time this year managing documents, up from 20 percent in 1997. Similarly, Merrill Lynch estimates that more than 85 percent of all business information exists as unstructured data -commonly appearing in e-mails, memos, notes from call centers and support operations, news, user groups, chats, reports, letters, surveys, white papers, marketing materials, research, presentations and
webpages. 

Few years back managing unstructured data wasn't the headache of CIOs, remarks VC Kumaran - Head IT, Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd. "But today the management has realized that huge valuable data is available in the unstructured data. So we are now involved in capturing these tacit information for the benefit of the organization," said
Kumaran, who is currently involved in a project where they are trying to capture the unstructured data.

The elite panelists from left: H. Mahalingam, VC Kumaran, Abraham Mathew, J.Vijayraghavan and Ranganath Sadasiva

Capturing of the unstructured data involves key issues such as collection of data, sharing of information, storage and search facility. If people in any organization are reluctant to share information, this tacit information cannot be captured easily. Once captured, the data has to be stored. It is here the IT manager comes into the picture where he has to work on how, where and what equipment to be used to store the data. Finally if the search facility is not available there is no point in capturing the data.






“For this endeavor to be successful, there should be involvement from the people. Unless users are not involved, it won't be a success,” feels
Kumaran. J.Vijayraghavan, Director IT, Alstom Ltd perceives that today data is available in multiple formats ­ fax, emails, tape and various other electronic formats. 






“The question today is where to store all these data. Earlier all data were available in hard copy alone now there is a mix of hard copy and electronic data. Today there is such an explosion of data, that the CIOs are confronted with the issue of where to store them, for lack of space to store these information becomes a question,” he said.





Concurs Vijayaraghavan who opines that retrieving the required information is a problem just because there are so many varieties of storage devices. 





“Over a period of time the business process has changed. Still the unstructured data is growing. The challenge today is the access and store data,” said H
Mahalingam, Head IT, Cholamandalam Investments & Finance Company Ltd.






Speaking from the vendors' perspective, Ranganath Sadasiva, Business Manager (South Network Storage Systems), HP said that it's a happy news to hear that there is more demand for storage, “but it's a challenge at the same time to address this market. With the increasing need for managing data, innovation in technology is also coming up to meet the demand,” he added.