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Actian's Commitment to Data Reliability

In a rapidly evolving data landscape, maintaining confidence in data integrity is paramount for organizations aiming to leverage insights for strategic advantage. Actian, the data division of HCLSoftware, has taken significant strides in enhancing data reliability by integrating groundbreaking features into its Data Intelligence Platform. This latest development introduces the concept of 'Data Contract First,' which aims to ensure robust governance and transparency within the data supply chain.

The heart of Actian's new approach lies in its ability to standardize data contracts, ensuring that data is trustworthy before it is utilized. By embedding processes that uphold governance from the inception of data creation, Actian provides businesses with a solid foundation for their AI implementations. As organizations increasingly adopt decentralized data architectures, the necessity for comprehensive data product strategies is becoming undeniable. According to ISG Software Research, it is projected that more than 60% of companies will utilize technologies facilitating data as a product by 2027.

Matt Aslett, Director of Research for Analytics and Data at ISG, notes, "With companies leveraging data products for self-service analytics, the need for robust data quality and management becomes critical. Integrating controls directly into data pipelines, the Actian Data Intelligence Platform is designed to safely scale data democratization."

The platform's new functionalities automate the management of data products and incorporate data contracts throughout the development workflows. This not only defines explicit expectations but also enforces compliance and identifies quality issues at the source, preventing them from cascading downstream. The outcomes are more reliable AI results, quicker insights, reduced compliance risks, and lower operational costs.

To further enhance the accessibility of data, departments can publish their customized data products in the Actian Data Marketplace. Automated APIs seamlessly register and update data products within existing pipelines, ensuring continuous integration and delivery while minimizing manual effort and maintaining the currency of data catalogs.

Emma McGrattan, Actian’s CTO, remarks on the challenges posed by decentralized environments, stating, "Managing data across domains while guaranteeing quality and governance at scale is complex. The Actian Data Intelligence Platform facilitates access to high-quality, well-documented data products, enhancing data democratization and fostering a culture of data sharing, while our Data Contract First approach guarantees reliable data from the source to usage."

The platform champions decentralized data ownership, dismantling silos to promote collaboration among both business and IT users. With improved data capture and utilization, business users can swiftly locate, comprehend, and use precisely the data they require. The platform's federated knowledge graph search engine delivers contextual results while ensuring enterprise-wide compliance. Access request workflows create centralized, transparent approval processes complete with clear audit trails.

Moreover, to further improve data accessibility, the new AI-driven query function, Ask AI, allows users to phrase questions in everyday language. Results are prioritized according to the company’s glossary, effectively eliminating technical hurdles and accelerating self-service analytics across the organization.

These enhancements span across federated metamodels, delivering total transparency of the data lineage. When combined with Actian Data Observability, businesses can confirm that their data products adhere to established data contracts. By enriching well-defined data sets with context, quality metrics, lineage, and usage insights, enterprises can better capitalize on data for AI initiatives and beyond.

The new data contract and data product features are immediately available within the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, while the Ask AI feature is currently in private preview. For additional details about these and other new functionalities, please refer to the blog entry on 'Data Contracts, AI Search, and More from Actian's Spring '25 Product Launch.'

For more information about Actian, visit actian.com. Actian enables organizations to securely manage and govern data on a massive scale, optimizing complex data environments and accelerating the delivery of AI-ready data. Actian's solutions are flexible and seamlessly integrate across on-premises, cloud, or hybrid environments.