Importance of Reducing Digital footprinWhat is data governance?

Data governance is a set of processes adopted by companies to ensure that valuable company data is protected and is appropriately processed. It involves a joint contribution of staff, technology, and innovative ideas so that the potential of the stored data is realized. It also acts as a bridge between Information technology and business practices and makes the business management realize the worth of their data. Also, Digital footprints of companies can be reduced using data governance techniques.

Why is reducing the digital footprint necessary?

Digital footprint has become more expanded due to data storage becoming cheaper. This means businesses need to invest in more software-related tools and time on protecting their essential company data (Hussein, 2018). By effectively managing the digital footprint across different applications and around varying levels of the organization, the service delivery and performance of the applications can be increased effectively. Furthermore, suitable data protection methods can be adopted by the company so that the overall business objectives are met..

Since the digital footprint incurs a considerable cost to the company, reducing it can reduce additional costs to the company. Also, data footprint reduction can increase the effectiveness of the IT resources which are available within the company. Many system capabilities are enhanced in this process, some of which include storage capacity, power, cooling effect, bandwidth, archiving, and others (iHicks et al., 2019). Reducing the digital footprint can also significantly affect the network components of the system. It can also enhance the capabilities of remote access components.

Other benefits of reducing data footprint include reduced time for data protection, diminished power, and cooling requirements, the lowered impact from overhead functions such as file scanning procedures, and system backups (Tao, & Dubrova, 2017). Reduced data footprint can also minimize the impact on the environment as the energy power consumption by the system and cooling procedures are modified and regulated.

How to reduce data footprint?

Many procedures can reduce the digital footprint of a company. Some companies might reduce the data footprint by restricting the use of data storage. This, in turn, will limit the user and application data of the system. Some examples of this are restricting the use of the database and putting a limit on the company mail size used by the employees. Also, some companies might place a limitation on the disk space used by departments.

While limiting access and placing quotas are a method of reducing data footprint, other techniques also include expanding the disk size and adding more computer hardware to the system. However, adding more hardware might add costs to the company, as installing new hardware would require IT, staff, for installations, and periodic maintenances. Also, more hardware would need appropriate software to go with it, which might add some more costs.

Another method of data footprint reduction may also include masking the system activities or shifting them to a secure location. The above-discussed techniques mustn’t hinder the business processes or the overall working procedure of the company. Otherwise, reducing the data footprint would be of little effect.

References:

Hicks, B., Culley, S., Gopsill, J., & Snider, C. (2019). Managing complex engineering projects: What can we learn from the evolving digital footprint?. International Journal of Information Management, 102016.

Hussein, H. A. (2018). A passive Digital footprint for Extranet environment. Al-Qadisiyah Journal Of Pure Science, 23(1), 152-158.

Tao, S., & Dubrova, E. (2017, January). Reliable low-overhead arbiter-based physical unclonable functions for resource-constrained IoT devices. In Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Cryptography and Security in Computing Systems (pp. 1-6).