How Capital One delivers data governance at scale

“It’s
hard
to
even
realize
how
much
it’s
going
to
help
you,”
Gurram
says,
adding
that
Capital
One
has
evolved
its
data
governance
practice
from
its
previous
centralized
model
to
better
address
a
rapidly
shifting
data
landscape.

“In
our
legacy
world,
we
had
a
finite
set
of
infrastructure,
a
finite
set
of
data,
and
a
finite
set
of
users,”
Gurram
says.
“And
we
used
to
manage
our
data
governance
centrally.”

Under
that
system,
business
units
would
come
to
the
central
team
for
all
their
data
governance
needs.
The
team
would
make
sure
all
data
ran
through
governance
policies
and
that
the
business
units
were
meeting
all
those
policies.

“But
there
has
been
this
whole
explosion
of
data,”
Gurram
says.
“We
used
to
talk
about
terabytes
of
data,
hundreds
of
terabytes
of
data.
Now
we
are
talking
about
hundreds
of
petabytes
of
data.
Data
is
coming
from
everywhere.”

To
cope
with
this
explosion,
Capital
One
has
established
a
hybrid
data
governance
practice,
with
a
central
enterprise
data
governance
team
and
federated
data
governance
teams
embedded
in
its
lines
of
business.
The
central
team
focuses
on
building
data
governance
platforms
and
self-service
tools
used
by
the
lines
of
business.
It’s
also
tasked
with
maintaining
the
company’s
data
governance
vision
and
championing
a
cultural
shift
in
which
data
is
no
longer
treated
as
data
but
as
a
product.

“All
of
our
policies,
all
our
platforms,
all
our
tools
are
managed
by
a
central
team
and
built
by
a
central
team,
but
the
execution
of
the
data
governance
comes
from
federated
teams,”
Gurram
says.
“We
give
the
right
tools
and
the
platform
to
our
business
partners,
our
lines
of
business,
and
they
make
sure
they
are
getting
the
data,
they
are
publishing
the
data
based
on
these
policies
using
a
self-service
tool.”

About Author

AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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