I have been focusing in the Enterprise Information Management (EIM) industry for the past few years in my day job. The requirement for management of information is a result of more and more information being created by various industry verticals and each and every one of us. I have been part of projects where we implemented a magnitude of Enterprise Information Management tools including Microsoft SharePoint, OpenText EIM Suite of Products, IBM EIM suite of Products including Documentum, Oracle EIM suite of Products and the EMC suite of products, which was recently sold to OpenText.
The Wikipedia definition:
Enterprise information management combines Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Business Process Management (BPM), Customer Experience Management (CEM), and Business Intelligence (BI). Enterprise information management takes these two approaches to managing information one step further, in that it approaches information management from an enterprise perspective. Where BI and ECM respectively manage structured and unstructured information, EIM does not make this "technical" distinction. It approaches the management of information from the perspective of enterprise information strategy, based on the needs of information workers. ECM and BI in a sense choose a denominationalised approach, since they only cover part of the information within an organization. This results in a lack of available information during decision-making processes, market analysis, or procedure definition.
I cannot find many stats on exactly how much data is created daily in the enterprise and government sectors, but let me try to explain by using a real world example, which I wrote about in an earlier article - Data Privacy and Security Concerns so I am quotiing my own work.
The organisation where we implemented the solution has 200 000 employees stretching 6 continents in 64 countries.
Let's do the math and keep It simple:
200 000 Employees create 1 document per day of 1 MB each.
That is 200 000 MB or 2 TB per day. Obviously there are individuals which creates larger documents so it quickly spins out of control. The data that is created is unstructured as it is not in databases and also excludes all email and correspondence.
Every two days now we create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003, according to Schmidt. That’s something like five exabytes of data, he says.
Let me repeat that: we create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Image Credit
We'll, the blockchain is a trust less environment with a full audit trail, which is two of the first things you require in order to have proper governance and compliance in place.
If we look at Factom, this is exactly what they do for the government sectors. They have two very interesting projects going.
The FACTOM Apollo Software provides governments as well as businesses the opportunity to use their secure software, to ensure that the data on the blockchain cannot be changed.
The FACTOM Iris platform , generates real Digital Identities, as it moved away from a central Certification authority and use the decentralisation of the blockchain to provide a distributed Certification Authority. Just there, we have a true winning formula. We should note that this is not unique to FACTOM, any blockchain provides this ability, but they are focusing on providing this as a service, which I believe is a very good solution to governments and business around the world.
As I discussed in my articles earlier, Blockchain and the Internet of Things, the Factom Iris platform addresses a lot when it comes to the Internet of Things.
Here is an extract from the FACTOM Website speaking about the Iris Platform:
IoT devices are becoming more embedded within our everyday lives. They are in the cars we drive, the devices we wear, and they secure our modern homes. It is imperative to safeguard them against would-be hackers. Vital personal information and our lives are being trusted to easily spoofed and hacked systems.
IoT devices have a particular vulnerability when it comes to establishing Identity. The industry so far is looking at traditional approaches based off of certificate authorities.
The problem with such approaches is that they do not scale, they are expensive, and various errors open up security holes. The improper validation of certificates allow man-in-the-middle attacks. This type of breach happens frequently.
Factom provides mechanisms to create lightweight security based on identity, reputation, origin, and manufacturer. This would be a true digital identity for IoT devices that could not be hacked or spoofed. Using the Factom Iris™ platform for IoT devices would not be limited to a certificate, or another static state, but can be dynamically updated with new information over time. Adding a time dimension to security is a revolution.
Governments biggest issue with "Cloud" solutions are always, that their data HAVE to reside within the physical borders of their countries, due to various legislative issues, which is probably understandable. We are not yet at the point where governments fully understand and trust the Blockchain technology yet, but I believe it is fairly :) secure.
I have sold many solutions to various government departments and institutions, throughout Africa, but I am not so sure that I will be able to convince the African governments that a blockchain is not a cloud solution and that the data is more secure on a blockchain than in their own data centers.
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