Data and data management

Terms related to data, including definitions about data warehousing and words and phrases about data management.

data integrity - Data integrity is the assurance that digital information is uncorrupted and can only be accessed or modified by those authorized to do so.
data labeling - Data labeling is the process of identifying and tagging data samples commonly used in the context of training machine learning (ML) models.
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.
data lakehouse - A data lakehouse is a data management architecture that combines the key features and the benefits of a data lake and a data warehouse.
data lifecycle - A data lifecycle is the sequence of stages that a particular unit of data goes through from its initial generation or capture to its eventual archival and/or deletion at the end of its useful life.
data lifecycle management (DLM) - Data lifecycle management (DLM) is a policy-based approach to managing the flow of an information system's data throughout its lifecycle: from creation and initial storage to when it becomes obsolete and is deleted.
data literacy - Data literacy is the ability to derive information from data, just as literacy in general is the ability to derive information from the written word.
data loss - Data loss is the intentional or unintentional destruction of information.
data loss prevention (DLP) - Data loss prevention (DLP) -- sometimes referred to as data leak prevention, information loss prevention and extrusion prevention -- is a strategy to mitigate threats to critical data.
data management as a service (DMaaS) - Data management as a service (DMaaS) is a type of cloud service that provides enterprises with centralized storage for disparate data sources.
data management platform (DMP) - A data management platform (DMP), also referred to as a unified data management platform (UDMP), is a centralized system for collecting and analyzing large sets of data originating from disparate sources.
data marketplace (data market) - Data marketplaces typically offer various types of data for different markets and from different sources.
data mart (datamart) - A data mart is a repository of data that is designed to serve a particular community of knowledge workers.
data masking - Data masking is a method of creating a structurally similar but inauthentic version of an organization's data that can be used for purposes such as software testing and user training.
data mesh - Data mesh is a decentralized data management architecture for analytics and data science.
data migration - Data migration is the process of transferring data between data storage systems, data formats or computer systems.
data minimization - Data minimization aims to reduce the amount of collected data to only include necessary information for a specific purpose.
data mining - Data mining is the process of sorting through large data sets to identify patterns and relationships that can help solve business problems through data analysis.
data modeling - Data modeling is the process of creating a simplified visual diagram of a software system and the data elements it contains, using text and symbols to represent the data and how it flows.
data observability - Data observability is a process and set of practices that aim to help data teams understand the overall health of the data in their organization's IT systems.
data pipeline - A data pipeline is a set of network connections and processing steps that moves data from a source system to a target location and transforms it for planned business uses.
data portability - Data portability is the ability to move data among different application programs, computing environments or cloud services.
data preprocessing - Data preprocessing, a component of data preparation, describes any type of processing performed on raw data to prepare it for another data processing procedure.
data processing - Data processing refers to essential operations executed on raw data to transform the information into a useful format or structure that provides valuable insights to a user or organization.
data profiling - Data profiling refers to the process of examining, analyzing, reviewing and summarizing data sets to gain insight into the quality of data.
data protection as a service (DPaaS) - Data protection as a service (DPaaS) involves managed services that safeguard an organization's data.
data protection management (DPM) - Data protection management (DPM) is the administration, monitoring and management of backup processes to ensure backup tasks run on schedule and data is securely backed up and recoverable.
data quality - Data quality is a measure of a data set's condition based on factors such as accuracy, completeness, consistency, reliability and validity.
data residency - Data residency refers to the physical or geographic location of an organization's data or information.
data retention policy - In business settings, data retention is a concept that encompasses all processes for storing and preserving data, as well as the specific time periods and policies businesses enforce that determine how and for how long data should be retained.
data science as a service (DSaaS) - Data science as a service (DSaaS) is a form of outsourcing that involves the delivery of information gleaned from advanced analytics applications run by data scientists at an outside company to corporate clients for their business use.
data scientist - A data scientist is an analytics professional who is responsible for collecting, analyzing and interpreting data to help drive decision-making in an organization.
data set - A data set is a collection of data that contains individual data units organized (formatted) in a specific way and accessed by one or more specific access methods based on the data set organization and data structure.
data silo - A data silo exists when an organization's departments and systems cannot, or do not, communicate freely with one another and encourage the sharing of business-relevant data.
data source name (DSN) - A data source name (DSN) is a data structure containing information about a specific database to which an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver needs to connect.
data splitting - Data splitting is when data is divided into two or more subsets.
data stewardship - Data stewardship is the management and oversight of an organization's data assets to help provide business users with high-quality data that is easily accessible in a consistent manner.
data storytelling - Data storytelling is the process of translating data analyses into understandable terms in order to influence a business decision or action.
data streaming - Data streaming is the continuous transfer of data from one or more sources at a steady, high speed for processing into specific outputs.
data structures - A data structure is a specialized format for organizing, processing, retrieving and storing data.
Data Transfer Project (DTP) - Data Transfer Project (DTP) is an open source initiative to facilitate customer-controlled data transfers between two online services.
data transformation - Data transformation is the process of converting data from one format, such as a database file, XML document or Excel spreadsheet, into another.
data validation - Data validation is the practice of checking the integrity, accuracy and structure of data before it is used for a business operation.
data virtualization - Data virtualization is an umbrella term used to describe an approach to data management that allows an application to retrieve and manipulate data without requiring technical details about the data.
data warehouse - A data warehouse is a repository of data from an organization's operational systems and other sources that supports analytics applications to help drive business decision-making.
data warehouse appliance - A data warehouse appliance is an all-in-one “black box” solution optimized for data warehousing.
data warehouse as a service (DWaaS) - Data warehouse as a service (DWaaS) is an outsourcing model in which a cloud service provider configures and manages the hardware and software resources a data warehouse requires, and the customer provides the data and pays for the managed service.
database (DB) - A database is a collection of information that is organized so that it can be easily accessed, managed and updated.
database management system (DBMS) - A database management system (DBMS) is system software for creating and managing databases, allowing end users to create, protect, read, update and delete data in a database.
database marketing - Database marketing is a systematic approach to the gathering, consolidation and processing of consumer data.
database normalization - Database normalization is intrinsic to most relational database schemes.
database replication - Database replication is the frequent electronic copying of data from a database in one computer or server to a database in another -- so that all users share the same level of information.
DataOps - DataOps is an Agile approach to designing, implementing and maintaining a distributed data architecture that will support a wide range of open source tools and frameworks in production.
Db2 - Db2 is a family of database management system (DBMS) products from IBM that serve a number of different operating system (OS) platforms.
decision-making process - A decision-making process is a series of steps one or more individuals take to determine the best option or course of action to address a specific problem or situation.
deep analytics - Deep analytics is the application of sophisticated data processing techniques to yield information from large and typically multi-source data sets comprised of both unstructured and semi-structured data.
demand planning - Demand planning is the process of forecasting the demand for a product or service so it can be produced and delivered more efficiently and to the satisfaction of customers.
denormalization - Denormalization is the process of adding precomputed redundant data to an otherwise normalized relational database to improve read performance.
descriptive analytics - Descriptive analytics is a type of data analytics that looks at past data to give an account of what has happened.
deterministic/probabilistic data - Deterministic and probabilistic are opposing terms that can be used to describe customer data and how it is collected.
digital twin - A digital twin is a virtual representation of a real-world entity or process.
digital wallet - In general, a digital wallet is a software application, usually for a smartphone, that serves as an electronic version of a physical wallet.
dimension - In data warehousing, a dimension is a collection of reference information that supports a measurable event, such as a customer transaction.
dimension table - In data warehousing, a dimension table is a database table that stores attributes describing the facts in a fact table.
dimensionality reduction - Dimensionality reduction is a process and technique to reduce the number of dimensions -- or features -- in a data set.
disambiguation - Disambiguation is the process of determining a word's meaning -- or sense -- within its specific context.
disaster recovery (DR) - Disaster recovery (DR) is an organization's ability to respond to and recover from an event that negatively affects business operations.
distributed database - A distributed database is a database that consists of two or more files located in different sites either on the same network or on entirely different networks.
distributed ledger technology (DLT) - Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is a digital system for recording the transaction of assets in which the transactions and their details are recorded in multiple places at the same time.
document - A document is a form of information that might be useful to a user or set of users.
Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) - The Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) is a United States federal law designed to protect the personal information of licensed drivers from improper use or disclosure.
Dublin Core - Dublin Core is an international metadata standard formally known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and includes 15 metadata (data that describes data) terms.
ebXML (Electronic Business XML) - EbXML (Electronic Business XML or e-business XML) is a project to use the Extensible Markup Language (XML) to standardize the secure exchange of business data.
Eclipse (Eclipse Foundation) - Eclipse is a free, Java-based development platform known for its plugins that allow developers to develop and test code written in other programming languages.
edge analytics - Edge analytics is an approach to data collection and analysis in which an automated analytical computation is performed on data at a sensor, network switch or other device instead of waiting for the data to be sent back to a centralized data store.
electronic data processing (EDP) - Electronic data processing (EDP) refers to the gathering of data using electronic devices, such as computers, servers or calculators.
empirical analysis - Empirical analysis is an evidence-based approach to the study and interpretation of information.
empiricism - Empiricism is a philosophical theory applicable in many disciplines, including science and software development, that human knowledge comes predominantly from experiences gathered through the five senses.
employee self-service (ESS) - Employee self-service (ESS) is a widely used human resources technology that enables employees to perform many job-related functions, such as applying for reimbursement, updating personal information and accessing company benefits information -- which was once largely paper-based, or otherwise would have been maintained by management or administrative staff.
encoding and decoding - Encoding and decoding are used in many forms of communications, including computing, data communications, programming, digital electronics and human communications.
encryption key management - Encryption key management is the practice of generating, organizing, protecting, storing, backing up and distributing encryption keys.
entity - An entity is a single thing with a distinct separate existence.
entity relationship diagram (ERD) - An entity relationship diagram (ERD), also known as an 'entity relationship model,' is a graphical representation that depicts relationships among people, objects, places, concepts or events in an information technology (IT) system.
erasure coding - Erasure coding (EC) is a method of data protection in which data is broken into fragments, expanded and encoded with redundant data pieces and stored across a set of different locations or storage media.
exabyte (EB) - An exabyte (EB) is a large unit of computer data storage, two to the sixtieth power bytes.
Excel - Excel is a spreadsheet program from Microsoft and a component of its Office product group for business applications.
explainable AI - Explainable AI (XAI) is artificial intelligence (AI) that's programmed to describe its purpose, rationale and decision-making process in a way that the average person can understand.
exponential function - An exponential function is a mathematical function used to calculate the exponential growth or decay of a given set of data.
extension - An extension typically refers to a file name extension.
Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) - Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) is a data integration process for transferring raw data from a source server to a data system (such as a data warehouse or data lake) on a target server and then preparing the information for downstream uses.
fact table - In data warehousing, a fact table is a database table in a dimensional model.
failover - Failover is a backup operational mode in which the functions of a system component are assumed by a secondary component when the primary becomes unavailable.
file extension (file format) - In computing, a file extension is a suffix added to the name of a file to indicate the file's layout, in terms of how the data within the file is organized.
file synchronization (file sync) - File synchronization (file sync) is a method of keeping files that are stored in several different physical locations up to date.
firmographic data - Firmographic data is types of information that can be used to categorize organizations, such as location, name, number of clients, industry and so on.
FIX protocol (Financial Information Exchange protocol) - The Financial Information Exchange (FIX) protocol is an open specification intended to streamline electronic communications in the financial securities industry.
foreign key - A foreign key is a column or columns of data in one table that refers to the unique data values -- often the primary key data -- in another table.
framework - In general, a framework is a real or conceptual structure intended to serve as a support or guide for the building of something that expands the structure into something useful.
garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) - Garbage in, garbage out, or GIGO, refers to the idea that in any system, the quality of output is determined by the quality of the input.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is legislation that updated and unified data privacy laws across the European Union (EU).