Strengthen Your Understanding of Core Data Management Concepts

The discipline of collecting, organizing, protecting, and using data so it’s accurate, accessible, and reliable for operations, analytics, and decision making.

A set of processes and technologies that create a single, consistent, authoritative source of key business data such as customers, suppliers, and products.

The policies, standards, and decision rights that define how data is managed, secured, and used across the organization.

The measure of how accurate, complete, consistent, timely, and valid data is. It is often improved through profiling, matching, cleansing, monitoring, and enrichment.

Highly organized data that fits into predefined fields and formats, making it easy to store and query (e.g., databases, spreadsheets).

Information without a predefined structure or format, such as documents, emails, images, and videos.

Data that doesn’t live in a rigid relational format but contains tags or markers that provide organizational cues (e.g., JSON, XML).

The processes used to combine data from multiple systems into a unified view, including ETL/ELT pipelines, APIs, and event streaming.

The blueprint for how data is stored, moved, connected, and accessed across the organization.

“Data about data” that describes origin, structure, usage, definitions, and relationships.

The operational role responsible for maintaining data standards, quality, and appropriate usage within business domains.

A record of where data comes from, how it changes over time, and how it flows across systems — critical for governance, auditability, and trust.