Manage Structured and Unstructured Data - SharePoint 2010 way - Part 1

Now a day’s majority of enterprises business processes and functions are facilitated or supported by the use of electronic systems.  Many of these systems create, manage and/or store electronic data that is identified as either “structured” or “unstructured”.  

“Structured data” typically is created and stored according to a pre-defined data model and fits into relational tables, or can be stored in rows and columns. By comparison, “unstructured data” has minimal identifiable structure, and may include e-mail files, word-processing text documents, PowerPoint presentations, JPEG and GIF image files, and MPEG video files.  

Unstructured data may be stored in collaborative environments, in document management systems, on file shares, etc. The management of unstructured data poses a significant challenge to most organizations today, since it relies heavily on individual user management and falls outside the purview of the traditional IT System information management model. Most unstructured content is created in an ad hoc fashion by individual business users, with little consistency in creation, naming, storing, disposing, etc. If left unmanaged, the sheer volume of unstructured data that is generated each year within an enterprise can be costly in terms of storage. In addition to these “hard dollar” costs, significant inefficiencies result from ineffective use of knowledge worker time when searching and finding needed information, and then (hopefully) classifying that information.

Unmanaged data can also pose a liability if information cannot be located in the event of an audit, investigation or litigation.  There is further risk related to records and information that should have been disposed of in accordance with retention policy, but continues to be retained. 

Im starting a series of posts around SharePoint 2010's capabilities to manage structured /unstructured data .... more to follow....