Many data governance solutions claim to solve every data privacy and protection issue, but we know that no two data governance solutions are created equal. As we launch into the New Year, we’ve listed our top 5 tips for Data Governance in 2023. These tips will help you determine what you need from your data governance solution, identify a few red flags to look out for, and point out some key differentiators that may help make your decision for you.

Tip 1: Keep tabs on your organization’s sensitive data.

The first step to ensuring your data governance solution is the right fit for you, is asking the question: “Where does sensitive data exist within my organization, and is it protected?” Understanding what sensitive data you store and who has access to it are critical first steps to ensuring the data governance solution you implement will fit your needs. While only certain data requires protection by law, leaked data can cause a headache across your organization – from damaging your reputation to the loss of loyal customers. It is essential that your data be discovered and classified across your organization’s ecosystem at all times.

Tip 2: Does your Data Governance solution offer complete coverage?

Data classifiers and catalogs are valuable and are extremely necessary in context, but at the end of the day, they cannot offer you a full governance solution. For complete data governance, you must not only be able to find and classify your data, but see data consumption, utilize thresholds to detect anomalies and alert on them, respond to threats with real-time blocking, and tokenize critical data at rest. True data governance will need to address a wide spectrum of access and security issues, including Access Controls, Compliance, Automation, Scale, and Protection. ALTR simplifies these steps for you – allowing you the ease of point and click solutions to better secure and simplify your data.

Tip 3: More expensive doesn’t mean better.

Many data governance solutions cost anywhere from $100k to$250k per year just to get started! These large, legacy platforms require you to invest valuable time, resources and money to even get started. You may need an army of costly consultants and six months to implement. On the other hand, ALTR’s pricing starts at free for life. Our Free Plan isn’t a trial plan, it’s just that – Free. Our Free plan gives you the power to understand how your data is used, add controls around access, and limit your data exposure. You can see how ALTR will work in your data ecosystem without risk. 

If you need more advanced governance controls, integration with your enterprise governance and security platforms, or increased data protection and dedicated support, our Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans area vailable. ALTR’s tiered pricing means there’s no large up-front commitment—you can start for free and expand if or when your needs change. Or stay on our free plan forever.

Tip 4: The Who of Data Governance

Clearly defining roles within your organization surrounding who needs access to data and when will set you up for success when it comes to protecting sensitive data within your organization.

When you know why each person needs the data you are protecting, you can build access control policies to fit highly specific purposes. Using ALTR you can create policies that limit access based on which data is being requested, who is requesting it, the access rate, time of day, day of week, and IP address. ALTR’s cloud-based policy engine and management console allow you to control data consumption across multiple cloud and on-premises applications from one central location.

Tip 5: Does your data governance solution allow you to scale?

Scalability may be the one thing that makes or breaks your data governance solution in 2023. As regulations and laws surrounding data privacy become more common, the more the data you own will need to be protected. The more data you need protected, the more time your data team is needing to allocate to processes that could easily be automated within ALTR. Governance solutions should easily implement and manage access for thousands of users to match. Scaling policy thresholds as needed allows you to optimize collaboration while stopping data theft or accidental exposure.

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Bonus Tip: Start for Free

We anticipate that 2023 will be a critical year for companies being held accountable for the sensitive data they own. ALTR makes getting ahead of the curve simple, easy, and achievable. With ALTR’s free data governance and security integration for Snowflake, you can automatically discover, classify, and tag sensitive data with a checkbox. Add controls like data masking from a drop-down menu. Get going in less than an hour. No SnowSQL is required.