ABSTRACT
The ongoing move to software defined and public cloud muddies the discovery process more; whereas previously data discovery was about physical observation of systems, modern discovery has to take into account increasingly disparate and virtualized systems. As businesses engage more in software as a service (SaaS) products to meet specialized needs, this spread of data will continue to increase discovery challenges. Data gravity acts as a cautionary consideration for why data discovery is important, particularly when people think of shadow IT. Shadow IT has existed for decades, but has become popularized by public cloud: business groups eschewing traditional IT services and striking out on their own, spinning up services that they directly manage. Discovered data that has real business use might be moved to centralized, protected storage and its usage profile substantially increased. Regardless of where it is moved to, we should aim to ensure all discovered data is placed under management—protection, lifecycle, and functional.
