Data Management Glossary
Metadata Indexing
Metadata, which is data about data, is becoming more strategic to managing unstructured data and feeding data to AI, because it delivers more context about the data. This in turn is critical for managing data cost efficiently, protecting data and curating precise data sets for AI.
Storage systems automatically create basic metadata for the unstructured data they store, such as author/owner timestamps, file size and type, and time of last access. Metadata indexing is a valuable capability that gives IT managers full visibility of unstructured data across hybrid storage—from on-premises to the cloud. This helps IT managers and storage administrators optimize storage by, for instance, identifying cold data that can be tiered or archived to cheaper storage and to see the rate of data growth, among other core metrics.
Get Better Unstructured Data Insight with Metadata Indexing
Metadata indexing is also valuable for ad hoc queries into data stores to understand common data types, costs per department or storage appliance/service, usage patterns, top owners by data volume and more. Tools that allow users to enrich metadata with additional tags, such as those identifying projects, PII or keywords, are especially useful so that IT and departmental users can quickly locate and find data sets for research and AI while ensuring that protected data is managed appropriately. Storage systems don’t allow for custom metadata tagging; you will need an unstructured data management system such as Komprise to enable that capability.
A Metadata Index Across Data Storage Silos
The Komprise Global File Index, included in Komprise Intelligent Data Management, is a metadata indexing service that runs in the cloud or that a customer can host on premises. Either way, Komprise manages the GFI, which indexes all files in place and analyzes all the metadata. Data and storage professionals can search, tag and create custom data sets across their storage silos and then copy and move those data sets in an automated fashion via plan. External scripts can also be used in the GFI.
Read the blog series on metadata management for more detail on metadata, its pivotal role in unstructured data management, and how to optimize it for a variety of use cases.