Micro Focus Embeds Analytics in Archiving Service to Improve Compliance

Micro Focus today updated one of the longest running archiving services to make it simpler to both mine data and comply with new regulations such as the General Data Protection Rregulation (GDPR) set to be enforced by the European Union next May.

Version 10 of Digital Safe, a hosted archiving service that Micro Focus gained via software assets that originally belonged to Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE), has been updated to make it easier to identify data that falls under the scope of regulations such as GDPR and MiFID II, a revamp of an existing Markets in Financial Instruments Directive put in place by the European Securities and Markets Authorities.

In addition, Micro Focus is adding over 400 analytics capabilities enabled by the Vertica columnar database and IDOL software for searching unstructured data. Micro Focus is also employing sentiment analysis, message clustering, and machine learning algorithms to better identify types of data stored in Digital Safe.

Finally, Micro Focus has added a set of open application programming interfaces (APIs), enhanced the reporting capabilities, improved security, made it simpler to capture and track data, and revamped the Digital Safe user interface.

Joe Garber, vice president of information management and governance at Micro Focus, says Digital Safe is the largest implementation of a private cloud, with data centers located in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom. Garber says interest in employing Digital Safe is on the rise because rules such as GDPR that impose hefty fines for misuse of personally identifiable information (PII) are causing organizations to reevaluate how they archive data.

“GDPR is going to be a real game changer,” says Garber.

Far too many organizations have not given much thought to what types of data they are collecting and how they store it. All around the world, new regulations are being implemented that significantly impact not only how data is used, but where it can be stored. Garber says Micro Focus expects that many organizations will simply find it more efficient to rely on an archiving service that exposes a suite of analytics tools to better manage all that data. Most organizations will find it cost prohibitive to implement similar capabilities on their own.

It’s not precisely clear yet what impact more stringent regulations will have on the way data is managed in the enterprise. But given the state of data management inside most organizations, there is a lot of room for improvement regardless of motivation.