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• The difference between data cleansing and data transformation

  Data cleansing corrects errors to improve data quality, while data transformation changes data format and structure to support analytics processes. Continue Reading

• What is a stored procedure?

  A stored procedure is a set of Structured Query Language (SQL) statements that multiple programs can reuse and share to perform specific tasks. Continue Reading

• The 2 types of climate risk and how DR teams can prepare

  Understanding the two types of climate risk and how to plan for them can help organizations better prepare for disasters and improve their impact on the environment. Continue Reading

• What is data profiling?

  Data profiling refers to the process of examining, analyzing, reviewing and summarizing data sets to gain insight into the quality of data. Continue Reading

• What is a data lake?

  A data lake is a storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format until it is needed for analytics applications. Continue Reading

• Definitions to Get Started

  • What is data visualization?
  • What is customer data integration (CDI)?
  • What is data restoration?
  • What is data analytics (DA)?

  • What is a backup storage device?
  • What is off-site backup?
  • What is an entity relationship diagram (ERD)?
  • What is data as a service (DaaS)?

  View All Definitions

• Strengthen a business continuity plan with testing exercises

  Conduct a business continuity exercise to better understand your organization's BC plan. After the exercise, use our free after-action report template to review how it went.Continue Reading

• Backup scheduling best practices to ensure availability

  For daily work files, databases and mission-critical systems and data, the more frequent the backup, the better. But how often should you back up all your data?Continue Reading

• What is a business continuity policy?

  A business continuity policy is the set of standards and guidelines an organization enforces to ensure resilience and proper risk management.Continue Reading

• 10 multi-cloud backup considerations for admins

  Using a multi-cloud data backup strategy can be good for data protection, but make sure that the providers are a good fit for your business first.Continue Reading

• Business impact analysis vs. risk assessment explained

  Do you know the difference between a business impact analysis and risk assessment? Find out how they differ and why you need to perform both here.Continue Reading

• Assess and manage the risks of using AI for business

  Legal ramifications, public image crises and misleading information are some of the disastrous consequences of incorrectly using AI. If you don't have a policy for managing AI risks, now is the time.Continue Reading

• 7 areas where AI can support disaster response

  Responding to a disaster requires IT teams to move quickly, with no room for error. Find out how AI-based technology can help before, during and after a crisis.Continue Reading

• SaaS disaster recovery best practices

  Businesses that use SaaS applications hand off some responsibilities of managing that data, but disaster recovery is not one of them. Make sure you have a recovery plan in place.Continue Reading

• What is data curation?

  Data curation is the process of creating, organizing and maintaining data sets so people looking for information can access and use them.Continue Reading

• What is unstructured data?

  Unstructured data is information, in many different forms, that doesn't follow conventional data models, making it difficult to store and manage in a mainstream relational database.Continue Reading

• What is a disaster recovery plan (DRP)?

  A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is a documented, structured approach that describes how an organization can quickly resume operations after an unplanned incident.Continue Reading

• What is data preprocessing? Key steps and techniques

  Data preprocessing, a component of data preparation, describes any type of processing performed on raw data to prepare it for another data processing procedure.Continue Reading

• What is data cleansing (data cleaning, data scrubbing)?

  Data cleansing, also referred to as data cleaning or data scrubbing, is the process of fixing incorrect, incomplete, duplicate or otherwise erroneous data in a data set.Continue Reading

• 8 steps to improve data visualization literacy

  Data visualization literacy is a crucial element of analytics -- it helps you communicate findings. These eight steps can help you improve your DVL.Continue Reading

• What is social media analytics?

  Social media analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing audience data shared on social networks to improve an organization's strategic business decisions.Continue Reading

• People-centered business continuity is critical in the age of AI

  Recent crises such as the CrowdStrike outages and California wildfires show why people-centered business continuity is crucial. Learn how to shift the focus to people here.Continue Reading

• How to assess and manage geopolitical risk

  Geopolitical risks are often linked to international political, social and economic activities. Set policies for global business to better identify risks before they happen.Continue Reading

• What is an analytics database (analytical database)?

  An analytics database, also called an analytical database, is a read-only system that stores historical data on business metrics such as sales performance and inventory levels.Continue Reading

• 6 top business continuity certifications to consider in 2025

  Organizations can bolster and validate the expertise of their IT teams with a variety of certifications. There are several options aimed at business continuity professionals.Continue Reading

• Develop data literacy skills to advance your career

  Data literacy skills are the foundation of data-driven decision-making. Identify your current skill level and learn what you must improve to better use data in your work.Continue Reading

• Will generative AI replace data analysts?

  Generative AI can't replace data analysts. It can help analysts be more effective, but GenAI lacks human insights and knowledge to do the job.Continue Reading

• 9 data visualization certifications

  Data visualization skills make you a valuable employee in a data-driven world, and adding a certification to your resume showcases your knowledge.Continue Reading

• How to use rsync and scp for data protection

  The rsync and scp tools are available to Linux, macOS and Windows users. These two simple utilities have several use cases for disaster recovery and data protection.Continue Reading

• Improve data visualizations, become a better storyteller

  Visualizations that make sense and are important to your audience's goals help you tell better stories with data. Color, layout and the type of data you display play a role.Continue Reading

• Business continuity vs. emergency management

  There is overlap between business continuity and emergency management, but don't confuse the two. They are separate but equally critical disaster recovery practices.Continue Reading

• How to build and maintain a reliable backup infrastructure

  A backup infrastructure is critical to long-term data protection and rapid recoveries. As environments become more complex, maintaining a strong infrastructure can be difficult.Continue Reading

• What is a business continuity plan audit and how do you create one?

  A business continuity plan audit is a formalized method for evaluating how business continuity processes are being managed.Continue Reading

• Disaster recovery glossary: 27 terms to know

  Creating a disaster recovery plan is challenging, but critical for long-term business success. DR teams and IT can benefit from understanding these 27 terms.Continue Reading

• Free network disaster recovery plan template and guide

  Proper network disaster recovery planning can mean the difference between a brief disruption and extensive downtime. Download our free template to get started building a plan.Continue Reading

• What is days sales outstanding (DSO)?

  Days sales outstanding (DSO) measures the average time it takes a business to collect payments after a sale.Continue Reading

• How to use Time Machine to back up your Mac

  Mac Time Machine backup is a useful tool for small businesses. It does not support cloud targets, but has a user-friendly interface and simple scheduling options for basic backups.Continue Reading

• Why data backup is important

  Not every organization has a backup infrastructure in place. There are several reasons why that is a mistake, including recovery costs and rising threats to critical data.Continue Reading

• What is big data analytics?

  Big data analytics is the process of examining big data to uncover information -- such as hidden patterns, correlations, market trends and customer preferences -- that can help organizations make informed business decisions.Continue Reading

• What is a business intelligence analyst and what do they do?

  Business intelligence analysts are key members of BI teams. Here's a look at the job, the skills it requires, salary levels and how the role of a BI analyst is evolving.Continue Reading

• 3-2-1 backup strategy explained: Is it effective?

  The 3-2-1 backup strategy is a time-tested data protection and recovery methodology for ensuring that data is protected adequately and up-to-date backup copies of the data are available when needed.Continue Reading

• What is data egress? How it works and how to manage costs

  Data egress is when data leaves a closed or private network and is transferred to an external location.Continue Reading

• How to implement a business intelligence project in 7 steps

  The BI implementation process involves a series of steps that organizations need to take to ensure projects are completed successfully and meet business goals.Continue Reading

• How to build an effective business intelligence strategy

  Explore the eight steps organizations need to develop and implement a successful business intelligence strategy, as well as some of the challenges staff can encounter.Continue Reading

• Noninvasive data governance offers friendly approach

  Data governance doesn't need to be a burden on employees. A noninvasive approach formalizes existing responsibilities as components of a governance program.Continue Reading

• What is continuous intelligence?

  Continuous intelligence (CI) is a data analysis process that delivers real-time analytics and insights as a part of ongoing business operations.Continue Reading

• What is embedded analytics?

  Embedded analytics is a data analysis technology that puts analytics capabilities within a business software application, platform or web portal instead of a separate tool.Continue Reading

• What is data?

  In computing, data is information translated into a form that is efficient for movement or processing.Continue Reading

• What is composable analytics?

  Composable analytics is an approach to data analytics and business intelligence (BI) that lets an organization combine modular components from different data and analytics tools.Continue Reading

• What is a metrics store?

  A metrics store -- also sometimes referred to as a metrics layer, metrics platform or headless business intelligence (BI) -- is a centralized repository for metrics definitions, including the calculations of metrics.Continue Reading

• Traditional BI vs. self-service BI: Differences and uses

  Traditional and self-service business intelligence are different approaches to BI initiatives. Here's what you need to know to decide which is right for your BI needs.Continue Reading

• Why data-driven operations must measure data culture

  Many organizations know what data culture is, but measuring culture levels and identifying necessary improvements is another challenge.Continue Reading

• What is decision intelligence?

  Decision intelligence is an emerging field that combines data science, artificial intelligence (AI) and decision theory to improve organizational decision-making.Continue Reading

• How does enterprise data protection in Copilot work?

  EDP is Microsoft's way of ensuring that any data that users expose through Copilot queries doesn't end up with third parties and isn't used to train the AI model.Continue Reading

• How to use the duplicity backup tool

  Open source tool duplicity can help sys admins manage many file servers, as well as back up and restore large amounts of data. Learn how to install, run and troubleshoot duplicity.Continue Reading

• NoSQL database types explained: Column-oriented databases

  Learn about the uses of column-oriented databases and the large data model, data warehouses and high-performance querying benefits the NoSQL database brings to organizations.Continue Reading

• 4 cloud disaster recovery best practices

  The cloud is a widely implemented technology for flexible and reliable disaster recovery. Businesses can optimize a cloud DR strategy with these four best practices.Continue Reading

• What is Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP)?

  Microsoft Visual FoxPro (VFP) is an object-oriented programming (OOP) environment with a built-in relational database engine.Continue Reading

• What is a business intelligence dashboard (BI dashboard)?

  A business intelligence dashboard, or BI dashboard, is a data visualization and analysis tool that displays on one screen the status of key performance indicators (KPIs) and other important business metrics and data points for an organization, ...Continue Reading

• Get started with the Kopia backup tool

  Backup applications have evolved for increased speed, flexibility and new storage locations. Open source tool Kopia is one option backup admins might consider.Continue Reading

• 6 disaster recovery site requirements for businesses

  Building a disaster recovery site provides organizations with a high degree of control over the facility. It also makes them responsible for several critical requirements.Continue Reading

• What is real-time business intelligence (RTBI)?

  Real-time business intelligence (RTBI) combines data analytics and various data processing tools to enable access to the most relevant, up-to-the-minute data and visualizations.Continue Reading

• What is Oracle?

  Oracle is one of the largest vendors in the enterprise IT market and the shorthand name of its flagship product, a relational database management system (RDBMS) that's formally called Oracle Database.Continue Reading

• What is self-service business intelligence (self-service BI)?

  Self-service business intelligence (BI) is an approach to data analytics that enables nontechnical business users to access and explore data sets.Continue Reading

• How to improve backup performance

  Achieving and maintaining optimal backup performance is a continuous process that requires a proactive approach to monitoring, analysis and optimization.Continue Reading

• 7 skills for improved data visualizations

  Great data visualizations require a combination of analytics, design and communication. Master seven key skills for data visualizations to effectively communicate data insights.Continue Reading

• What is a business continuity plan (BCP)?

  A business continuity plan (BCP) is a document that consists of the critical information an organization needs to continue operating during an unplanned event.Continue Reading

• What is corporate performance management (CPM)?

  Corporate performance management (CPM) encompasses the processes and methodologies used to align an organization's strategies and goals to its plans and actions as a business.Continue Reading

• What is NoSQL (Not Only SQL database)?

  NoSQL is an approach to database management that can accommodate a wide variety of data models, including key-value, document, columnar and graph formats.Continue Reading

• What is a data fabric?

  A data fabric is an architecture and software offering a unified collection of data assets, databases and database architectures within an enterprise.Continue Reading

• 5 data governance framework examples

  Data governance isn't plug and play: Organizations must select which data governance framework best fits their business goals and needs.Continue Reading

• Data literacy training requires a dual approach

  Data literacy training is a flexible learning process. Organizations can tailor training for their teams, but individuals can find educational resources to better their skills.Continue Reading

• What is ad hoc analysis?

  Ad hoc analysis is a business intelligence (BI) process designed to answer a specific business question by using company data from various sources.Continue Reading

• What is business intelligence architecture (BI architecture)?

  A business intelligence architecture is a framework for the various technologies an organization deploys to run business intelligence and analytics applications.Continue Reading

• 6 key steps form a data-driven decision-making framework

  A data-driven decision-making framework provides guidelines that any organization or individual can use. Improve decision-making on a professional and personal level.Continue Reading

• What is sentiment analysis?

  Sentiment analysis, also referred to as 'opinion mining,' is an approach to natural language processing (NLP) that identifies the emotional tone behind a body of text.Continue Reading

• Successful data operations follow a data governance roadmap

  Implementing a data governance strategy requires a roadmap to keep everyone on track and overcome challenges. Follow eight key steps for best results.Continue Reading

• What is Structured Query Language (SQL)?

  Structured Query Language (SQL) is a standardized programming language that is used to manage relational databases and perform various operations on the data in them.Continue Reading

• What is data validation?

  Data validation is the practice of checking the integrity, accuracy and structure of data before it is used for or by one or more business operations.Continue Reading

• How to use Microsoft Copilot in Power BI

  Enable Microsoft Copilot in Power BI to automate key features using generative AI capabilities that improve insights and accelerate decision-making.Continue Reading

• Example disaster recovery plan for small businesses

  Small businesses make significant investments in IT infrastructure. They must protect those investments from unplanned and potentially destructive events with a DR plan.Continue Reading

• You need analytics governance

  Analytics governance might not seem exciting, but it can improve innovation and mitigate risks. It's also critical to responsible data management and analytics practices.Continue Reading

• Use RAG with LLMs to democratize data analytics

  Pairing retrieval-augmented generation with an LLM helps improve prompts and outputs, democratizing data access and making previously elusive information available to more users.Continue Reading

• What is a data flow diagram (DFD)?

  A data flow diagram (DFD) is a graphical or visual representation that uses a standardized set of symbols and notations to describe a business's operations through data movement.Continue Reading

• What is denormalization and how does it work?

  Denormalization is the process of adding precomputed redundant data to an otherwise normalized relational database to improve read performance.Continue Reading

• What is a key performance indicator (KPI)? Strategy and guide

  Key performance indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable business metrics that corporate executives, managers and other stakeholders use to track and analyze factors deemed crucial to meeting the organization's stated objectives.Continue Reading

• What are data silos and what problems do they cause?

  A data silo is a repository of data that's controlled by one department or business unit and isolated from the rest of an organization, much like grass and grain in a farm silo are closed off from outside elements.Continue Reading

• What is a data architect?

  A data architect is an IT professional responsible for defining the policies, procedures, models and technologies used in collecting, organizing, storing and accessing company information.Continue Reading

• How to craft a cost-effective backup strategy

  A cost-effective data backup plan requires IT teams to examine their data protection requirements and choose the right strategy that fits into what the business can spend.Continue Reading

• What is a vector database?

  A vector database is a type of database technology that's used to store, manage and search vector embeddings, numerical representations of unstructured data that are also referred to simply as vectors.Continue Reading

• Windows Server backup to the cloud: A step-by-step guide

  Backups are critical when using Windows Server. While third-party cloud vendors offer protection, Windows Server admins can back up to Azure using only native Microsoft tools.Continue Reading

• 7 data modeling techniques and concepts for business

  Three types of data models and various data modeling techniques are available to data management teams to help convert data into valuable business information.Continue Reading

• How GenAI-created synthetic data improves augmentation

  Synthetic data can enhance the performance and capabilities of data augmentation techniques. Navigate the challenges generative AI models present to reap the benefits.Continue Reading

• What is master data management (MDM)?

  Master data management (MDM) is a process that creates a uniform set of data on customers, products, suppliers and other business entities from different IT systems.Continue Reading

• data structure

  A data structure is a specialized format for organizing, processing, retrieving and storing data.Continue Reading

• How to create Group Policy backups in Windows Server

  Group Policy Objects represent a significant time investment and an important configuration management tool. Follow these simple steps to protect them.Continue Reading

• How to back up a Windows DHCP server

  The Windows DHCP server creates an automatic local backup of its configuration regularly, but Windows Server admins can configure a stronger backup with this tutorial.Continue Reading

• The 4 phases of emergency management

  To effectively recover from a disruptive incident, IT and DR teams must have a plan in place. This guide breaks down the four phases of an emergency management plan.Continue Reading

• Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)

  Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is an open standard application programming interface (API) that allows application programmers to easily access data stored in a database.Continue Reading

• database management system (DBMS)

  A database management system (DBMS) is a software system for creating and managing databases.Continue Reading

• 6 key features of embedded analytics software

  Data-driven organizations need employees of all technical skill levels to be able to access and use data. Embedded analytics software has six features that make data more usable.Continue Reading