Seven Rules for Information Governance in the Cloud

With each passing day, it’s becoming clear that cloud computing is putting a spotlight on data governance issues in the enterprise. EMC recently asked the members of its Leadership Council for Information Advantage to come up with a roadmap to help their CIO peers achieve information governance in a “world of cloudy computing.”

Click through for seven rules for cloud-based information governance, from EMC.

Start out slowly and identify a pilot project to begin developing your organization’s cloud capabilities and experience in managing externally operated cloud services.

Assert your organization’s right to own the information, even if you don’t own the infrastructure, application or service associated with that information.

Review information governance policies to identify areas of highest risk. Then, establish authoritative definitions for key vocabulary in those areas and require external partners to comply with your standards.

Anticipate the need to integrate cloud-based information down the road and lay the strategic groundwork for future data integration activities now.

Look for shared requirements in standardized business functions such as finance, HR and CRM, and consolidate services organization-wide on a limited number of cloud platforms wherever possible.

Encrypt information and reorganize data sets so they’re accessible and usable across multiple platforms.

Shift IT’s focus from owning and operating IT systems to becoming master information service integrators.