Choosing to implement a Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) strategy can be a daunting task, especially when deciding amongst the numerous cloud DaaS providers in the market. Handing control of your data to a third party involves some inherent risks, which makes it important for you to make the right choice for the long-term data security of your business.
A DaaS strategy can offer considerable benefits to the wider business, especially with data-reliant workflows. Access to real-time information can significantly improve the agility of your marketing teams, and thanks to the centralized and structured storage of crucial data points, the insight generation will also improve.
How to choose a DaaS provider
There are several key factors to consider when choosing a DaaS (cloud-based) provider:
Security – The biggest concern with DaaS is handing your sensitive customer and B2B data over to a third party. While the security of IT and network infrastructure lie with the DaaS provider, you will still need to properly configure and maintain the data you store on their cloud.
With cloud platforms, you will have access to identity access management (IAM), which allows you to control access to data based on the security clearance of an employee. It’s also important to consider data encryption, both in-transit and at-rest, as any data transfers between your network and the DaaS provider are your responsibility. Maintaining high standards in these areas is vital for maintaining compliance with regulations like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA and PCI-DSS.
DaaS providers like Snowflake offer automatic encryption of data upon ingestion, using a minimum of 128-bit AES encryption. They also offer end-to-end encryption (E2EE), which encrypts data-in-transit with the same AES method. Such automatic data security management can reduce the burden on your IT staff, making it an interesting proposition to consider.
Usability – While not commonly discussed, the usability of your DaaS solution is important to consider. With complicated systems and unintuitive management tools, your IT staff could quickly become overwhelmed with data management workloads, compromising the integrity of your data management strategy.
You should choose a DaaS provider that offers software tools fully compatible with your existing IT assets and infrastructure. Key considerations here include client operating system compatibility, the type of structured query language (SQL) version that is being used and the cloud hosting platforms on which the service can run natively.
Integration – With a DaaS approach, the aim is to create a centralized data repository from which all your existing software tools will reference. To do this, you need to ensure that your DaaS solution is compatible with your systems and integrates well with your overall infrastructure.
For example, consider whether your data analytics platform can interface with your chosen DaaS provider’s system. With website management and media hosting, check whether your DaaS solution can integrate well with your existing CRM system.
Snowflake uses an extract-transform-load (ETL) approach to offer integration with several data integration tools. This approach involves pulling data from your source database before augmenting it for use with another system and pushing it to a new target database. You can integrate Snowflake with numerous third-party tools, such as Talend, Stitch Data Loader and Tableau.
Implement a DaaS strategy with Trianz
Trianz is a leading data management consulting firm with decades of experience in helping our clients to maximize the value offered by their data. We work closely with you to assess your existing data management strategy, before helping you decide upon and implement a best-of-breed solution tailored to your business model. DaaS significantly increases data agility, and we can help you maximize visibility and insight generation by implementing these services.
Get in touch with our data management consulting team and begin centralizing your business data with Trianz today.
