Data Ownership in the Cloud

Data ownership in the Cloud is a widely debated topic. Data security and reliability are two key concerns. "What happens to my data once it gets into the Cloud" is getting a wide variety of answers from vendors, systems integrators and evangelists of the Cloud. This is making the consumer of Cloud computing nervous, contributing to slower adoption of the Cloud. Where do we begin? Should we focus on the data acquisition, the malicious threats, location of data, privacy, transport mechanisms or all of them and more?

This is a time to revisit (and even question) the conventional wisdom used to identify and establish data ownership.

Information management leaders are leveraging artifacts from their enterprise/global data strategy to assess elements of information value chain that can benefit from the Cloud. Assumption is that organizations who want to manage information as a strategic asset have both the data strategy and clear visibility into the information value chain. Defining what "data ownership" means is critical to identify stakeholders, align expectations and deliver value from data in the Cloud.

Along the information value chain, everyone "owns" either the tangible or intangible value of data depending on their role within or across elements of the value chain. These roles include data creators, data providers, data enrichers, data buyers, data consumers, data sponsors, data regulators et al. It is reasonable to assume that an individual or a group takes on one or more roles at any given point in time.

Clarity on data ownership is the first step to alleviate the worries about data in the Cloud and to unlock the potential of Cloud computing.