Acknowledge the Complexities
Adopting new architecture may deliver strong cost efficiencies and other quantifiable benefits in the long run, but the acceleration of cloud migration and the increasing complexity of data governance may aggravate the persistent challenges of data fragmentation today. Marketers, for example, will be eager to apply advanced use cases for customer segmentation and measurement, but they may find it challenging to glean insights from data sets across clouds.
Organizations could compile data on their individual clouds, requiring other parties to hand over their relevant data, or limit partnerships to those on their cloud platform. But these options could curtail valuable partnership opportunities, since each participant remains legally accountable for security and governance of customer data regardless of where it is stored, and would risk the exposure of valuable intellectual property (IP). Potential partners’ lack of control over their data can become a significant barrier to collaboration and hampers the ability to connect larger data sets that might reveal valuable insights through SQL queries, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).
Moving data into a clean room—every month, every week, or even every day—to activate data exchange and avoid querying stale data is duplicative and operationally expensive. And consolidating data to a single cloud could create inefficient redundancies that cloud migration was meant to eliminate, undermining trust in the veracity of the data and any insights developed from it.
Learning to Avoid Compromise
Information technology (IT) teams have a tremendous responsibility to ensure data is protected and used safely. IT leaders can mitigate risk while increasing data access and utility by using services distributed across multiple cloud vendors.
Using a “federated” technical approach, analysts can conduct SQL queries and advanced analytics to utilize data across borders and silos as if the data were all in one place. This enables permissioned parties to safely access information without having to move or copy the raw data, activating cross-cloud collaboration at scale.
To make collaboration both easier and safer, marketers and analysts are using a number of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) to ensure data collaboration maintains strict consumer-privacy standards while allowing data analysts to analyze key measures such as return on advertising spend (ROAS). PETs represent an ever-growing group of technologies that help companies comply with data regulations and partner requirements with respect to using data. Along with adapting a privacy-by-design architecture built on consumer choice, transparency, and control, an enterprise can better orchestrate both inter- and intra-company collaboration across clouds, seamlessly and in a privacy-conscious manner.
IT executives should begin by identifying solutions that can eliminate unnecessary data transfers and improve interoperability across clouds. It’s essential to connect relevant data across platforms and environments safely and easily. By using an interoperable solution to do so, they avoid compromising on simplicity while retaining the flexibility to use best-in-breed applications.
Taking Advantage of Interoperability
Within a fast-growing market, jockeying cloud providers may downplay the inevitability of a multi-cloud universe and propose workarounds that promote further consolidation. Their clients, however, should only do so at their own risk—incentives to build the interoperability necessary to seamlessly work with other clouds are few. Instead, IT leaders should consider leveraging a neutral third-party software solution to provide data translation and connectivity across clouds.
What should your organization expect a third-party interoperability provider to offer?
1. Mathematics-based privacy. Making a data table private requires two core capabilities: hiding raw data and preventing analytics results from exposing raw data. Common techniques such as masking and hashing protect raw data, but only recently available technologies have emerged to prevent exfiltration. These techniques use math to ensure analysts—whether honest but curious or actively adversarial—cannot reverse-engineer sensitive data using queries or machine learning. Differential privacy, secure multi-party computation, and attack-based evaluation are examples of leading PETs.
2. Data translation across environments. Improving data access has become a critical strategy to driving enterprise success, helping to improve everything from supply chain optimization and new product development to marketing execution. Unfortunately, data is often not standardized, and new identifiers and channels continue to complicate effective customer engagement and intelligence. A built-in identity solution that can harmonize data sets ensures that as much of the relevant data as possible is activated, more signals are recognized, and the value of available data is maximized to its greatest effect.
3. Tools to improve time-to-value. Implementation of a cross-cloud solution should be as painless as possible. Look for “quality of life” features such as purpose-built tools and processes to assist with legal agreements and extensive expertise in navigating the complexities of data ethics. Selecting a provider with a focus on privacy and information security capabilities helps build trust that enables more collaboration, not only across an enterprise and across clouds but also across geographies with varying degrees of privacy regulation. Speed-to-value requires solutions that are trusted, nimble, and global.
Today’s enterprise leaders recognize the critical role data plays in digital transformation and in building the new era of customer experience. They need partners to collaborate with them and with each other, regardless of what platform they themselves have selected, and they need to take advantage of interoperable solutions that provide freedom and access to the best solutions and the best data to achieve their strategic objectives.
Learn more about how LiveRamp can help your organization make the most of a multi-cloud approach without compromising flexibility or simplicity.