Actian Life

Celebrating our Future Leaders: Actian Interns Make an Impact

Actian Corporation

July 31, 2025

In honor of National Internship Day on July 31st, we’re proud to spotlight the incredible contributions of our Actian interns.

At Actian, internships go beyond basic tasks. They offer hands-on experience, professional growth, and opportunities to deliver ongoing business value. Our interns build real-world skills, make meaningful connections, and drive tangible business outcomes.

Whether it’s optimizing product performance, shaping go-to-market strategies, or exploring cutting-edge AI innovations, these interns are tackling projects that matter to the business, customers, and partners.

Get to know these talented individuals who are making a difference today and shaping the future of technology:

Shira Cohen

Shira Cohen

Majoring in Information Systems and Management at the University of Maryland, Cohen’s internship is focused on supporting and optimizing the web presence for the Actian Data Intelligence Platform.

“My favorite takeaway from my internship at Actian is that even in a remote setting, it’s the people and culture that truly make a work experience great,” Cohen said. “Being surrounded by talented, supportive, and genuinely kind individuals has made a lasting impact, and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with such an amazing team.”

What friends and coworkers may not know is how Cohen views the ocean. “The ocean is both my favorite place and my biggest fear,” Cohen shared.

Jack Donahoo

Jack Donahoo

Hailing from Texas Tech University and majoring in Computer Engineering, Donahoo is working on data intelligence during the Actian internship. Like others in the internship program, Donahoo enjoyed the bonding experience during the onboarding process.

“My favorite memory was getting to meet all of the other interns and doing the group activities together, such as the Legos and building skateboards,” Donahoo explained.

Outside of work, Donahoo is racking up airline miles. “I am part German, so I travel to Europe as much as I can,” Donahoo said.

Shatoria Giles

Shatoria Giles

Pursuing a major in Software Engineering in Computer Science at Southern New Hampshire University, Giles is supporting the user interface at Actian and helping drive conversions. One of Giles’ favorite aspects of the internship is centered on an app.

“Getting to work on a large-scale production app is great,” Giles said. “I also got to study while getting paid!”

When not working or studying, Giles attends Sloss Tech meetings and spends time online. “I am active on LinkedIn and have a website I manage called shatoria.org,” Giles explained.

Dawit Girma

Dawit Girma

A student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Girma is majoring in Computer Science and Engineering. During the Actian internship, Girma is finding ways to use KEDA, a Kubernetes-based component that scales containers, to auto scale an application using RabbitMQ metrics as a trigger.

Bonding with other interns has been a highlight for Girma. “The onboarding week was so fun! I loved meeting the interns and doing activities together in and out of the office,” Girma explained. “Out of all of the activities, painting the skateboards might have been the most fun moment for me!”

Girma may have bragging rights when it comes to a series of basketball video games. “I am very good at NBA 2K, especially the Park mode,” Girma said.

Hardik Kaushik

Hardik Kaushik

Actian internships are not limited to the United States. Kaushik studies at the Technical University of Munich with a major in Management and Digital Technology. Kaushik helps give Actian a competitive edge by contributing to market research, battlecard creation, and competitor research.

“I am learning a lot about how to properly conduct market and competitor research based on different variables,” Kaushik related.

People may not know that Kaushik has a unique memory capability. “Though not proven but to some extent I feel I have Hyper Active Selective Memory (HASM),” Kaushik said. “I remember random events from a decade ago, down to minute details for no apparent reason.”

Iyu Lin

Iyu Lin

Representing the West Coast from the University of California, Berkeley, Lin is majoring in Information Management and Systems. Lin’s internship is exploring how Actian can implement large language models (LLMs) to improve the documentation user experience.

“I’ve been comparing chatbot approaches used by competitors and building prototypes with different LLMs to evaluate their responses,” Lin said.

The support and flexibility throughout the internship have been important. “I’ve had the freedom to try out my ideas, and my mentor always listens and provides thoughtful feedback,” Lin shared. “I’ve also received help and encouragement from people across different teams, which made the experience even more meaningful!”

Those who like boba tea will appreciate Lin’s drink of choice. “I’m a big fan of boba tea,” Lin revealed. “I can happily drink at least one cup a day!”

Sai Kalyan Maram

Sai Kalyan Maram

Majoring in Information Technology at the University of New Hampshire, Maram is working on enhancing the Actian Community search experience. This entails using Coveo Quantic and Lightning Web Components (LWC) within Salesforce.

The project involves integrating AI-powered search and creating relevance-tuned pipelines using machine learning models like CRGA and SE. It also includes redesigning the user interface to improve user engagement.

“My favorite takeaway is how much trust and ownership I was given as an intern. I wasn’t just doing small tasks. I was solving real problems impacting our global users,” Maram said. “One memorable moment was getting recognition from the internal team and Coveo support for diagnosing and resolving a major issue with query redirection. It taught me the value of persistence, communication, and cross-team collaboration.”

Two fun facts about Maram are the use of AI for side projects and a love of traveling. “I’m building an AI-powered platform on the side that helps real estate agents automate lead management and property insights,” Maram noted. “Also, I love long road trips, especially when I’m the one behind the wheel!”

Kelsey Mulrooney

With a major in Cybersecurity and attending the Rochester Institute of Technology, Mulrooney’s internship focuses on helping Actian deploy a security tool called Armo.

“I’m reviewing findings in Armo to evaluate and create tickets and compliance scripts,” Mulrooney said. “I’m gaining hands-on experience with Argo CD, Kubernetes, and Kubernetes Security.”

One highlight of the internship was meeting others at the Actian office. “My favorite memory is the internship orientation in Round Rock, Texas,” Mulrooney explained. “It’s always great meeting the other interns and kicking off the summer together.”

People may be surprised to know about Mulrooney’s additional skills. “I am a percussionist and a figure skater!” Mulrooney revealed.

Bhoomi Saraogi

Bhoomi Saraogi

Attending New York University with a major in Economics and a minor in Data Science and Marketing, Saraogi is creating and supporting a direct-mail account-based marketing (ABM) campaign as part of the Actian internship.

“I’m working on the design and copy of my really creative and fun campaign idea, and chatting with my manager,” Saraogi said.

Highlights of the internship so far include orientation, bowling with peers in Austin, and being surprised by birthday goodies that Actian sent. One highlight outside of work and school is going on the Formula Rosse rollercoaster at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi.

“I’ve been on the world’s fastest roller coaster,” Saraogi said.

Ashmit Thakur

The Electrical Engineering / Computer Science major at Texas A&M is working on performance and stress testing with Grafana k6, an open-source, developer-friendly, extensible load testing tool.

“One of my favorite memories so far has been the intern dinners we shared after work. It was great to unwind and connect with my fellow interns outside of the office, whether over a meal or during fun activities like bowling,” Thakur explained. “Overall, the entire first week of the internship was an absolute blast and I really appreciate Logan Lou and Rae Coffman-Bueb on Actian’s Employee Experience team for making that happen.”

As a sports enthusiast, Thakur is interested in playing and watching basketball.

“One fun fact about me is that I love basketball and have been playing the sport for a majority of my life,” Thakur noted. “I’m also a huge Houston Rockets fan, so watching the next season of the NBA is definitely going to be a lot of fun.”

Christy Yao

Christy Yao

Pursuing a Master’s Degree in Integrated Innovation for Products and Services at Carnegie Mellon University, Yao is optimizing AI during the Actian internship.

“I am working on AI features that deliver a cohesive, intuitive experience through consistent design patterns, engaging interactions, and user-centered functionality,” Yao said.

The work is both rewarding and challenging. “One of my favorite takeaways from this internship is how much I’ve learned by challenging myself on the front lines of evolving AI technology while collaborating with a design-driven team that constantly pushed me to grow.” Yao explained.

Yao has a favorite shopping experience. “I’m a big fan of Trader Joe’s!” Yao shared. “I could probably give a full tour of the store and love introducing every new seasonal item to my friends.”

Juana Zhang

A Brandeis University student majoring in Business Analytics, Zhang is contributing to Actian’s CX user analytics during the internship.

“I gained an in-depth understanding of the platform and conducted an initial user segmentation based on data analysis,” Zhang said. A favorite moment during the internship was working on gifts for kids.

“During the first week, we hand-painted and crafted skateboards to give to children,” Zhang said.

One interesting fact about Zhang is the impressive academic resume. “I completed my three degrees in three different countries,” Zhang said.

Ready to Build a Future at Actian?

At Actian, internships are just the beginning. Whether a college student is looking to experience a unique internship or someone is looking to take the next step in their career, Actian offers opportunities to grow skills, make a difference, and work alongside supportive, innovative teams.

Actian offers an award-winning workplace that values an employee-first culture. Explore current openings and learn more about life at Actian on our Careers page.

About Actian Corporation

Actian empowers enterprises to confidently manage and govern data at scale. Actian data intelligence solutions help streamline complex data environments and accelerate the delivery of AI-ready data. Designed to be flexible, Actian solutions integrate seamlessly and perform reliably across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. Learn more about Actian, the data division of HCLSoftware, at actian.com.

AI & ML

Inside Actian’s Research: Why Data Governance Threatens AI Success

Actian Corporation

July 29, 2025

What 600 enterprise data leaders revealed about maturity gaps, AI readiness, and what to do next

This article highlights key insights from Actian’s global data governance study and introduces the Actian Confidata Index, a free assessment for benchmarking your organization’s data and AI maturity.

In today’s AI-driven economy, data maturity is no longer optional. It’s foundational. Yet, according to the Actian State of Data Governance Maturity 2025 research, most enterprise organizations significantly overestimate the maturity of their governance practices. And that overconfidence is putting AI investments at risk.

To better understand where enterprises truly stand, Actian surveyed over 600 senior data, IT, and business leaders from organizations earning more than $1 billion in annual revenue, spanning:

7 countries (U.S., U.K., Germany, France, India, Sweden, and Australia).
12 industries (including financial services, manufacturing, technology, healthcare, retail, and energy/utilities).
4 seniority levels (C-suite, VPs, directors, and managers).
3 business functions (Data/Analytics, IT/Technology, and Line-of-Business).

What we uncovered is both revealing and urgent: while most enterprises believe their data governance maturity is high, the reality paints a more fragmented, fragile picture, especially as pressure mounts to scale AI.

A Confidence Gap With Consequences

At a glance, the results seem promising. Respondents gave themselves a high maturity rating, averaging 4.13 out of 5. But dig deeper, and a troubling disconnect emerges:

83% of organizations admit to facing governance and compliance challenges.
C-suite leaders rate maturity 12% higher than frontline managers, who experience the issues daily.
Data governance ranks as the least mature of eight foundational data dimensions.

This gap has consequences. When governance is overestimated, organizations may launch AI initiatives based on incomplete, untrusted, or non-compliant data, increasing the risk of failure, legal exposure, and reputational harm.

Why Data Governance is the Differentiator for AI

The research highlights the truth that governance isn’t just about compliance: it’s the critical link between enterprise data and AI success.

Respondents said strengthening governance would directly lead to:

state of data governance maturity outcomes

Top 5 expected outcomes of better data governance – Actian Global Research 2025

The message is clear: AI adoption is a key catalyst for governance improvements, but organizations understand that AI success is impossible without a strong data foundation. Respondents ranked data quality and trust as equally critical to AI enablement, underscoring that governance maturity is the differentiator between AI-driven growth and AI failure.

Additionally, governance improvements are seen as a pathway to faster market execution and better business insights, proving that governance is not just a compliance necessity—it’s a competitive advantage.

Beyond Tech: Strategy, Skills, and Culture Remain the Real Barriers

The research also reveals that data management challenges go beyond technical barriers. The top five challenges holding organizations back are deeply organizational and cultural in nature:

state of data governance maturity obstacles

Top 5 data management obstacles – Actian Global Research 2025

The fact that AI and data strategy rank as top challenges reveals that organizations lack clear roadmaps to integrate governance with innovation. Meanwhile, the shortage of skilled staff and weak data literacy hinder adoption and impact.

Without a holistic, integrated approach that combines people, processes, and technology, governance efforts risk fragmentation and inability to support AI-driven transformation.

Who’s Governing the Data?

While highly centralized governance remains dominant, over half of organizations are exploring center-led and decentralized models to strike a balance between consistency and agility.

47 percent highly centralized data governance

Enterprise approaches to data governance – Actian Global Research 2025

However, successful governance isn’t just about structure, but also about execution. Organizations transitioning to more federated models must invest in training, standardized processes, and stronger cross-functional collaboration to ensure scalable and impactful governance.

Introducing the Actian Confidata Index

To help organizations bridge the gap between perception (overconfidence) and reality, we launched the Actian Confidata Index—a free, research-backed self-assessment tool.

data maturity model chart

The five data & AI maturity categories – Actian Confidata Index

Built on the same eight-dimensional framework used in our global research, the Actian Confidata Index enables enterprises to:

Benchmark Data & AI Maturity against 600+ industry professionals.
Identify strengths and gaps across eight core dimensions.
Receive a personalized report with recommendations to accelerate AI adoption and business value.

Those eight dimensions include:

Data Strategy – Alignment with business and AI goals.
Data Governance – Accountability, compliance, and risk frameworks.
Data Culture & Organizational Readiness – Literacy and adoption.
Data Management – Structuring, securing, and governing assets.
Data Architecture & Integration – Interoperability and scalability.
Data Quality & AI Governance – Ensuring AI-ready data.
Data Operations – Lifecycle efficiency and agility.
Value Realization – Turning data into measurable business outcomes.

data maturity model spider chart

Benchmark against data leaders on the eight dimensions – Actian Confidata Index

Whether your team is just getting started or already operating at scale, the Actian Confidata Index gives you a clear view of where you stand—and what to do next.

“Our global survey reveals a compelling paradox: AI acts as both a critical driver and a primary challenge for data governance. The Actian Confidata Index helps organizations find a starting point with an assessment and clear next steps to build strong data foundations and governance frameworks that enable AI success.”

Emma McGrattan, CTO of Actian

Take the Free Confidata Index Assessment

The bottom line? You can’t succeed at AI without strong governance, and you can’t improve governance without first understanding where you are today.

Benchmark your data and AI maturity. Get personalized recommendations.

Take the free Actian Confidata Index assessment

About Actian Corporation

Data Intelligence

Why Federated Knowledge Graphs are the Missing Link in Your AI Strategy

Actian Corporation

July 23, 2025

why federated knowledge graphs are the missing link

A recent McKinsey report titled “Superagency in the workplace: Empowering people to unlock AI’s full potential ” notes that “Over the next three years, 92 percent of companies plan to increase their AI investments”. They go on to say that companies need to think strategically about how they incorporate AI. Two areas that are highlighted are “federated governance models” and “human centricity.” Where teams can create and understand AI models that work for them, while having a centralized framework to monitor and manage these models. This is where the federated knowledge graph comes into play.

For data and IT leaders architecting modern enterprise platforms, the federated knowledge graph is a powerful architecture and design pattern for data management, providing semantic integration across distributed data ecosystems. When implemented with the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, a federated knowledge graph becomes the foundation for context-aware automation, bridging your data mesh or data fabric with scalable and explainable AI.

Knowledge Graph vs. Federated Knowledge Graph

A knowledge graph represents data as a network of entities (nodes) and relationships (edges), enriched with semantics (ontologies, taxonomies, metadata). Rather than organizing data by rows and columns, it models how concepts relate to one another.

An example being, “Customer X purchased Product Y from Store Z on Date D.”

A federated knowledge graph goes one step further. It connects disparate, distributed datasets across your organization into a virtual semantic graph without moving the underlying data from the systems.

In other words:

You don’t need a centralized data lake.
You don’t need to harmonize all schemas up front.
You build a logical layer that connects data using shared meaning.

This enables both humans and machines to navigate the graph to answer questions, infer new knowledge, or automate actions, all based on context that spans multiple systems.

Real-World Example of a Federated Knowledge Graph in Action

Your customer data lives in a cloud-based CRM, order data in SAP, and web analytics in a cloud data warehouse. Traditionally, you’d need a complex extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipeline to join these datasets.

With a federated knowledge graph:

“Customer,” “user,” and “client” can be resolved as one unified entity.
The relationships between their behaviors, purchases, and support tickets are modeled as edges.
More importantly, AI can reason with questions like “Which high-value customers have experienced support friction that correlates with lower engagement?”

This kind of insight is what drives intelligent automation.

Why Federated Knowledge Graphs Matter

Knowledge graphs are currently utilized in various applications, particularly in recommendation engines. However, the federated approach addresses cross-domain integration, which is especially important in large enterprises.

Federation in this context means:

Data stays under local control (critical for a data mesh structure).
Ownership and governance remain decentralized.
Real-time access is possible without duplication.
Semantics are shared globally, enabling AI systems to function across domains.

This makes federated knowledge graphs especially useful in environments where data is distributed by design–across departments, cloud platforms, and business units.

How Federated Knowledge Graphs Support AI Automation

AI automation relies not only on data, but also on understanding. A federated knowledge graph provides that understanding in several ways:

Semantic Unification: Resolves inconsistencies in naming, structure, and meaning across datasets.
Inference and Reasoning: AI models can use graph traversal and ontologies to derive new insights.
Explainability: Federated knowledge graphs store the paths behind AI decisions, allowing for greater transparency and understanding. This is critical for compliance and trust.

For data engineers and IT teams, this means less time spent maintaining pipelines and more time enabling intelligent applications.

Complementing Data Mesh and Data Fabric

Federated knowledge graphs are not just an addition to your modern data architecture; they amplify its capabilities. For instance:

In a data mesh architecture, domains retain control of their data products, but semantics can become fragmented. Federated knowledge graphs provide a global semantic layer that ensures consistent meaning across those domains, without imposing centralized ownership.
In a data fabric design approach, the focus is on automated data integration, discovery, and governance. Federated knowledge graphs serve as the reasoning layer on top of the fabric, enabling AI systems to interpret relationships, not just access raw data.

Not only do they complement each other in a complex architectural setup, but when powered by a federated knowledge graph, they enable a scalable, intelligent data ecosystem.

A Smarter Foundation for AI

For technical leaders, AI automation is about giving models the context to reason and act effectively. A federated knowledge graph provides the scalable, semantic foundation that AI needs, and the Actian Data Intelligence Platform makes it a reality.

The Actian Data Intelligence Platform is built on a federated knowledge graph, transforming your fragmented data landscape into a connected, AI-ready knowledge layer, delivering an accessible implementation on-ramp through:

Data Access Without Data Movement: You can connect to distributed data sources (cloud, on-prem, hybrid) without moving or duplicating data, enabling semantic integration.
Metadata Management: You can apply business metadata and domain ontologies to unify entity definitions and relationships across silos, creating a shared semantic layer for AI models.
Governance and Lineage: You can track the origin, transformations, and usage of data across your pipeline, supporting explainable AI and regulatory compliance.
Reusability: You can accelerate deployment with reusable data models and power multiple applications (such as customer 360 and predictive maintenance) using the same federated knowledge layer.

Get Started With Actian Data Intelligence

Take a product tour today to experience data intelligence powered by a federated knowledge graph.

About Actian Corporation

Data Observability

Data Observability vs. Data Monitoring

Actian Corporation

July 21, 2025

Two pivotal concepts have emerged at the forefront of modern data infrastructure management, both aimed at protecting the integrity of datasets and data pipelines: data observability and data monitoring. While they may sound similar, these practices differ in their objectives, execution, and impact. Understanding their distinctions, as well as how they complement each other, can empower teams to make informed decisions, detect issues faster, and improve overall data trustworthiness.

What is Data Observability?

Data Observability is the practice of understanding and monitoring data’s behavior, quality, and performance as it flows through a system. It provides insights into data quality, lineage, performance, and reliability, enabling teams to detect and resolve issues proactively.

Components of Data Observability

Data observability comprises five key pillars, which answer five key questions about datasets.

Freshness: Is the data up to date?
Volume: Is the expected amount of data present?
Schema: Have there been any unexpected changes to the data structure?
Lineage: Where does the data come from, and how does it flow across systems?
Distribution: Are data values within expected ranges and formats?

These pillars allow teams to gain end-to-end visibility across pipelines, supporting proactive incident detection and root cause analysis.

Benefits of Implementing Data Observability

Proactive Issue Detection: Spot anomalies before they affect downstream analytics or decision-making.
Reduced Downtime: Quickly identify and resolve data pipeline issues, minimizing business disruption.
Improved Trust in Data: Enhanced transparency and accountability increase stakeholders’ confidence in data assets.
Operational Efficiency: Automation of anomaly detection reduces manual data validation.

What is Data Monitoring?

Data monitoring involves the continuous tracking of data and systems to identify errors, anomalies, or performance issues. It typically includes setting up alerts, dashboards, and metrics to oversee system operations and ensure data flows as expected.

Components of Data Monitoring

Core elements of data monitoring include the following.

Threshold Alerts: Notifications triggered when data deviates from expected norms.
Dashboards: Visual interfaces showing system performance and data health metrics.
Log Collection: Capturing event logs to track errors and system behavior.
Metrics Tracking: Monitoring KPIs such as latency, uptime, and throughput.

Monitoring tools are commonly used to catch operational failures or data issues after they occur.

Benefits of Data Monitoring

Real-Time Awareness: Teams are notified immediately when something goes wrong.
Improved SLA Management: Ensures systems meet service-level agreements by tracking uptime and performance.
Faster Troubleshooting: Log data and metrics help pinpoint issues.
Baseline Performance Management: Helps maintain and optimize system operations over time.

Key Differences Between Data Observability and Data Monitoring

While related, data observability and data monitoring are not interchangeable. They serve different purposes and offer unique value to modern data teams.

Scope and Depth of Analysis

Monitoring offers a surface-level view based on predefined rules and metrics. It answers questions like, “Is the data pipeline running?”
Observability goes deeper, allowing teams to understand why an issue occurred and how it affects other parts of the system. It analyzes metadata and system behaviors to provide contextual insights.

Proactive vs. Reactive Approaches

Monitoring is largely reactive. Alerts are triggered after an incident occurs.
Observability is proactive, enabling the prediction and prevention of failures through pattern analysis and anomaly detection.

Data Insights and Decision-Making

Monitoring is typically used for operational awareness and uptime.
Observability helps drive strategic decisions by identifying long-term trends, data quality issues, and pipeline inefficiencies.

How Data Observability and Monitoring Work Together

Despite their differences, data observability and monitoring are most powerful when used in tandem. Together, they create a comprehensive view of system health and data reliability.

Complementary Roles in Data Management

Monitoring handles alerting and immediate issue recognition, while observability offers deep diagnostics and context. This combination ensures that teams are not only alerted to issues but are also equipped to resolve them effectively.

For example, a data monitoring system might alert a team to a failed ETL job. A data observability platform would then provide lineage and metadata context to show how the failure impacts downstream dashboards and provide insight into what caused the failure in the first place.

Enhancing System Reliability and Performance

When integrated, observability and monitoring ensure:

Faster MTTR (Mean Time to Resolution).
Reduced false positives.
More resilient pipelines.
Clear accountability for data errors.

Organizations can shift from firefighting data problems to implementing long-term fixes and improvements.

Choosing the Right Strategy for An Organization

An organization’s approach to data health should align with business objectives, team structure, and available resources. A thoughtful strategy ensures long-term success.

Assessing Organizational Needs

Start by answering the following questions.

Is the organization experiencing frequent data pipeline failures?
Do stakeholders trust the data they use?
How critical is real-time data delivery to the business?

Organizations with complex data flows, strict compliance requirements, or customer-facing analytics need robust observability. Smaller teams may start with monitoring and scale up.

Evaluating Tools and Technologies

Tools for data monitoring include:

Prometheus
Grafana
Datadog

Popular data observability platforms include:

Monte Carlo
Actian Data Intelligence Platform
Bigeye

Consider ease of integration, scalability, and the ability to customize alerts or data models when selecting a platform.

Implementing a Balanced Approach

A phased strategy often works best:

Establish Monitoring First. Track uptime, failures, and thresholds.
Introduce Observability. Add deeper diagnostics like data lineage tracking, quality checks, and schema drift detection.
Train Teams. Ensure teams understand how to interpret both alert-driven and context-rich insights.

Use Actian to Enhance Data Observability and Data Monitoring

Data observability and data monitoring are both essential to ensuring data reliability, but they serve distinct functions. Monitoring offers immediate alerts and performance tracking, while observability provides in-depth insight into data systems’ behavior. Using both concepts together with the tools and solutions provided by Actian, organizations can create a resilient, trustworthy, and efficient data ecosystem that supports both operational excellence and strategic growth.

Actian offers a suite of solutions that help businesses modernize their data infrastructure while gaining full visibility and control over their data systems.

With the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, organizations can:

Monitor Data Pipelines in Real-Time. Track performance metrics, latency, and failures across hybrid and cloud environments.
Gain Deep Observability. Leverage built-in tools for data lineage, anomaly detection, schema change alerts, and freshness tracking.
Simplify Integration. Seamlessly connect to existing data warehouses, ETL tools, and BI platforms.
Automate Quality Checks. Establish rule-based and AI-driven checks for consistent data reliability.

Organizations using Actian benefit from increased system reliability, reduced downtime, and greater trust in their analytics. Whether through building data lakes, powering real-time analytics, or managing compliance, Actian empowers data teams with the tools they need to succeed.

About Actian Corporation

Data Management

Understanding Structural Metadata

Actian Corporation

July 17, 2025

Today, organizations and individuals face an ever-growing challenge: the sheer volume of data being generated and stored across various systems. This data needs to be properly organized, categorized, and made easily accessible for efficient decision-making. One critical aspect of organizing data is through the use of metadata, which serves as a descriptive layer that helps users understand, find, and utilize data effectively.

Among the various types of metadata, structural metadata plays a crucial role in facilitating improved data management and discovery. This article will define what structural metadata is, why it is useful, and how the Actian Data Intelligence Platform can help organizations better organize and manage their structural metadata to enhance data discovery.

What is Structural Metadata?

Metadata is often classified into various types, such as descriptive metadata, administrative metadata, and structural metadata. While descriptive metadata provides basic information about the data (e.g., title, author, keywords), and administrative metadata focuses on the management and lifecycle of data (e.g., creation date, file size, permissions), structural metadata refers to the organizational elements that describe how data is structured within a dataset or system.

In simpler terms, structural metadata defines the relationships between the different components of a dataset. It provides the blueprint for how data is organized, linked, and formatted, making it easier for users to navigate complex datasets. In a relational database, for example, structural metadata would define how tables, rows, columns, and relationships between entities are arranged. In a document repository, it could describe the format and organization of files, such as chapters, sections, and subsections.

Key Features of Structural Metadata

Here are some key aspects of structural metadata:

Data Relationships: Structural metadata defines the relationships between data elements or files within a dataset. For instance, in a relational database, it describes how tables are linked through keys or indexes, and how columns relate to each other within the same table.
Data Formats and Types: It specifies the data formats used (e.g., text, numeric, date) and helps identify the data types of each element. In data warehousing, structural metadata defines the schema, such as whether data is stored in star or snowflake schema.
Hierarchical Organization: It outlines how data is organized hierarchically or sequentially, such as parent-child relationships between datasets or subfolders within a directory structure.
Data Integrity and Constraints: Structural metadata often includes information on constraints like field lengths, data validation rules, and referential integrity, ensuring that the data is consistent and follows predefined rules.
Access and Navigation: This metadata helps users understand how to access and navigate large datasets by providing information about where and how data is located, allowing for efficient querying and retrieval.

Why is Structural Metadata Important?

Structural metadata plays a fundamental role in ensuring that data is understandable, accessible, and usable. Here are several reasons why it is essential:

Data Discovery and Access: Structural metadata enables users to locate and understand data more efficiently. By understanding how data is organized and the relationships that exist between various components, users can easily navigate large datasets to find relevant information without having to sift through each individual data element.
Data Quality and Consistency: When the structure of a dataset is clearly defined through metadata, it ensures that data is consistently formatted and follows specific rules. This consistency helps maintain data quality and reliability, which is crucial for analysis and decision-making.
Improved Data Integration: Organizations often deal with data spread across different systems, platforms, and applications. Structural metadata facilitates integration by defining how disparate data sources are connected or how they should interact. It helps in joining datasets correctly, enabling better cross-platform analytics.
Data Governance and Compliance: In regulated industries, where data must meet specific legal or industry standards, structural metadata ensures that data complies with necessary rules and regulations. It makes audits, data governance practices, and compliance checks easier and more transparent.
Efficient Querying and Analytics: In analytics and business intelligence tools, having a well-structured dataset enables more efficient querying of data. Structural metadata allows for faster retrieval of data, helping analysts and business users generate insights quickly and accurately.
Enhanced Data Management: By providing clear definitions of data formats, relationships, and constraints, structural metadata streamlines the process of managing, updating, and maintaining datasets. It reduces errors and minimizes the risk of misinterpreting data, which can lead to faulty conclusions.

Challenges of Managing Structural Metadata

Despite its importance, managing structural metadata is not without challenges.

Complexity: As datasets grow and become more complex, it can be difficult to keep track of all the different relationships, hierarchies, and formats. Large organizations may struggle to maintain a consistent structure across numerous datasets.
Data Silos: In many organizations, data is stored in separate systems or applications, each with its own metadata standards. This can create silos where data is not easily discoverable or usable across departments or platforms.
Lack of Standardization: Without a standardized approach to metadata management, organizations may struggle to consistently define structural metadata across their datasets. This inconsistency can lead to confusion and errors, hindering data integration and analysis efforts.
Scalability: As organizations continue to generate more data, the challenge of managing structural metadata at scale becomes more pronounced. This requires robust tools and systems capable of handling increasing volumes of metadata efficiently.

How Actian Can Help Organize and Manage Structural Metadata for Better Data Discovery

The Actian Data Intelligence Platform provides organizations with the tools to handle their metadata efficiently. By enabling centralized metadata management, organizations can easily catalog and manage structural metadata, thereby enhancing data discovery and improving overall data governance. Here’s how the platform can help:

1. Centralized Metadata Repository

The Actian Data Intelligent Platform allows organizations to centralize all metadata, including structural metadata, into a single, unified repository. This centralization makes it easier to manage, search, and access data across different systems and platforms. No matter where the data resides, users can access the metadata and understand how datasets are structured, enabling faster data discovery.

2. Automated Metadata Ingestion

The platform supports the automated ingestion of metadata from a wide range of data sources, including databases, data lakes, and cloud storage platforms. This automation reduces the manual effort required to capture and maintain metadata, ensuring that structural metadata is always up to date and accurately reflects the structure of the underlying datasets.

3. Data Lineage and Relationships

With Actian’s platform, organizations can visualize data lineage and track the relationships between different data elements. This feature allows users to see how data flows through various systems and how different datasets are connected. By understanding these relationships, users can better navigate complex datasets and conduct more meaningful analyses.

4. Data Classification and Tagging

The Actian Data Intelligence Platform provides powerful data classification and tagging capabilities that allow organizations to categorize data based on its structure, type, and other metadata attributes. This helps users quickly identify the types of data they are working with and make more informed decisions about how to query and analyze it.

5. Searchable Metadata Catalog

The platform’s metadata catalog enables users to easily search and find datasets based on specific structural attributes. Whether looking for datasets by schema, data format, or relationships, users can quickly pinpoint relevant data, which speeds up the data discovery process and improves overall efficiency.

6. Collaboration and Transparency

Actian’s platform fosters collaboration by providing a platform where users can share insights, metadata definitions, and best practices. This transparency ensures that everyone in the organization is on the same page when it comes to understanding the structure of data, which is essential for data governance and compliance.

7. Data Governance and Compliance

Using a federated knowledge graph, organizations can automatically identify, classify, and track data assets based on contextual and semantic factors. This makes it easier to map assets to key business concepts, manage regulatory compliance, and mitigate risks.

Get a Tour of the Actian Data Intelligence Platform Today

Managing and organizing metadata is more important than ever in the current technological climate. Structural metadata plays a crucial role in ensuring that datasets are organized, understandable, and accessible. By defining the relationships, formats, and hierarchies of data, structural metadata enables better data discovery, integration, and analysis.

However, managing this metadata can be a complex and challenging task, especially as datasets grow and become more fragmented. That’s where the Actian Data Intelligence Platform comes in. With Actian’s support, organizations can unlock the full potential of their data, streamline their data management processes, and ensure that their data governance practices are aligned with industry standards, all while improving efficiency and collaboration across teams.

Take a tour of the Actian Data Intelligence Platform or sign up for a personalized demonstration today.

About Actian Corporation

Data Management

What is the Meta Grid? Metadata Decentralization in the Digital Age

Actian Corporation

July 15, 2025

As the digital landscape expands, new concepts and ideas emerge to address the growing complexity and challenges of managing information. One such concept is the Meta Grid, a term that has captured attention in the realm of digital infrastructure, decentralization, and metadata management.

At the heart of the Meta Grid is the principle of metadata decentralization. It’s a novel idea championed by Ole Olesen-Bagneux, Actian’s Chief Evangelist and a visionary thinker who has explored ways business leaders can rethink how data is organized, managed, and accessed. This article explains what the Meta Grid is, how it operates, and the implications of metadata decentralization for the future of the internet and digital ecosystems.

The Digital World and its Challenges

To understand the Meta Grid, it’s important to first grasp the challenges facing digital infrastructure today. As the internet and digital infrastructure continue to grow and evolve, the sheer volume of data being generated, stored, and shared across the globe has exploded. From social media platforms to cloud computing, everything revolves around vast amounts of data, which are not only essential for business operations but also for individuals’ everyday digital experiences.

However, managing this data is no easy task. The centralized systems used by many large corporations rely on data centers to store and organize information, which often leads to issues related to data control, security, and privacy. The centralization of metadata, which is data about data, has raised concerns about the concentration of information in the hands of a few large entities. These entities, such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon, have access to vast amounts of metadata that allows them to control how people access and interact with information.

Moreover, traditional data systems are often inefficient, with siloed data repositories that make it difficult for users and organizations to share, access, and seamlessly utilize data. This can result in data duplication, redundancy, and fragmentation, which leads to costly inefficiencies.

Enter the Meta Grid: A Vision for Decentralized Metadata

The Meta Grid is an innovative solution to these challenges, providing a new framework for managing metadata in a decentralized manner. At its core, the Meta Grid is a conceptual and technological infrastructure that seeks to distribute the storage and management of metadata across a decentralized network, rather than relying on central authorities or data silos.

Unlike traditional centralized databases, which require all information to be stored and processed by a single entity or server, the Meta Grid takes advantage of decentralized technologies—such as blockchain, distributed ledgers, and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks—to create a system where metadata is distributed across a vast network of independent nodes. This decentralization of metadata brings a range of benefits, including increased privacy, security, efficiency, and user control.

Ole Olesen-Bagneux and the Concept of Metadata Decentralization

The concept of the Meta Grid can be traced back to the work of Ole Olesen-Bagneux, a researcher and thought leader who has extensively explored the potential of metadata decentralization. Olesen-Bagneux has argued that traditional centralized models of metadata management are fundamentally flawed and inefficient, particularly in light of the increasing volume of data being generated by users and organizations worldwide.

In his work, Olesen-Bagneux suggests that metadata should be treated as a fundamental layer of infrastructure in the digital ecosystem. Rather than being centralized in the hands of a few major players, metadata should be distributed and accessible to anyone who needs it—while still retaining its ability to be organized, searchable, and analyzed. This idea is built upon the principles of decentralization, transparency, and user empowerment.

One of the core tenets of Olesen-Bagneux’s vision for metadata decentralization is that it empowers users to have greater control over their own data. By decentralizing metadata, individuals no longer need to rely on third-party companies or platforms to store and manage information. Instead, users can have full ownership and control of their metadata, which can be stored securely in decentralized systems that prioritize privacy and security.

Olesen-Bagneux emphasizes the importance of interoperability in the decentralized metadata ecosystem. For the Meta Grid to function effectively, it must be able to facilitate seamless interactions between various platforms, applications, and services. This interoperability is crucial for creating an efficient and cohesive digital environment where data can be shared and accessed across different systems without friction or delays.

How the Meta Grid Works

To understand how the Meta Grid works, it’s helpful to break it down into its key components:

Decentralized Data Storage: Unlike traditional centralized systems that store data in a single location, the Meta Grid relies on decentralized storage mechanisms. Data is broken into smaller pieces, encrypted, and distributed across the network, ensuring that no single entity has complete control over the data.
Metadata as a Layer of the Meta Grid: Metadata is crucial because it provides contextual information about the data itself. In the Meta Grid, metadata is stored in a distributed manner, meaning that instead of being stored on a centralized server or database, it is scattered across the network through the use of data lakes, data warehouses, and other repositories. Each node in the network stores a small part of the metadata, and the entire system works together to make the metadata accessible and searchable.
User Control and Privacy: One of the biggest advantages of the Meta Grid is that it gives users control over their own data. In a decentralized system, users can decide who has access to their metadata and how it can be used. This represents a significant shift from the current centralized systems, where users often have little control over how their personal data is handled.
Security and Transparency: Decentralization inherently improves the security and transparency of data management. With multiple independent nodes storing the metadata, it becomes more difficult for malicious actors to compromise the system or gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. Furthermore, blockchain and other decentralized technologies can provide an immutable record of transactions, ensuring transparency and accountability.
Interoperability and Integration: For the Meta Grid to function effectively, it must support interoperability between different platforms and services. The decentralized nature of the Meta Grid allows for seamless integration of various applications, from content management systems to e-commerce platforms, creating a more fluid and cohesive digital experience.

Benefits of the Meta Grid and Metadata Decentralization

The Meta Grid, as envisioned by Ole Olesen-Bagneux, offers several potential benefits:

Enhanced Privacy and Security: By decentralizing metadata, individuals have greater control over their own information, reducing the risk of data breaches and unauthorized access. Moreover, decentralized networks are inherently more resilient to attacks because there is no single point of failure.
Greater Efficiency: Decentralized metadata management eliminates the need for centralized servers, which can be prone to inefficiencies and bottlenecks. The Meta Grid’s distributed nature allows for faster data retrieval and processing, improving overall system performance.
User Empowerment: With metadata decentralization, users are no longer dependent on third-party platforms to control and manage their information. This empowers individuals to make informed decisions about how their data is used and shared, leading to a more transparent digital ecosystem.
Interoperability and Flexibility: The Meta Grid allows for seamless interaction between different digital systems and platforms. This interoperability is crucial for fostering collaboration and data sharing across industries, organizations, and applications.

The Future of the Meta Grid

As the digital world continues to evolve, the Meta Grid represents a potential paradigm shift in how organizations think about and manage metadata. By decentralizing metadata storage and management, businesses can create a more secure, transparent, and efficient digital ecosystem that benefits users and organizations alike.

However, the widespread adoption of the Meta Grid will require significant technological advancements, regulatory frameworks, and industry collaboration. Still, with thinkers like Ole Olesen-Bagneux pushing the boundaries of metadata decentralization, the Meta Grid could very well become a central component of the next-generation digital infrastructure.

The Meta Grid, through the lens of metadata decentralization, presents a revolutionary approach to managing and controlling data in a more efficient, secure, and user-centric manner. By shifting the power away from centralized authorities and giving individuals more control over their own information, the Meta Grid has the potential to reshape the digital landscape for the better.

About Actian Corporation

Data Intelligence

Unlocking Business Value: Data Intelligence Success Stories

Traci Curran

July 9, 2025

Every day, people across industries are challenged to make sense of overwhelming amounts of data. At Actian, we recognize that organizations constantly struggle to find effective ways to connect, manage, and analyze their data.

The Actian Data Intelligence Platform is one proven solution. For Actian, success isn’t just about technology; it’s about helping our customers lay the foundation to thrive in a fast-moving, data-rich world. But why does it matter so much, and how does it tangibly change the way people work? According to our customers, they need data to accelerate time-to-value, empower business users, ensure compliance and governance, and foster collaboration and innovation. In short, data drives every aspect of their business.

Below, we explore various use cases and highlight the real-world value our customers have achieved. You can view the full infographic here.

Accelerating Time-to-Value Through Automation and Rapid Deployment

Modern business moves at the speed of data. When organizations can automate data cataloging and rapidly deploy data intelligence solutions, they cut through months of manual work and deliver value almost immediately. For example, one Actian customer achieved up to 90% automation in data cataloging within six months, giving hundreds of users instant access to the data they need. This automation doesn’t just save time—it frees up IT teams to focus on strategic projects instead of repetitive tasks, and it enables business users to act on insights without delay.

Empowering Business Users With Self-Service Analytics and Data Discovery

Gone are the days when business users had to wait in line for IT to generate reports or answer data questions. Self-service analytics tools put the power of exploration and insight directly into the hands of those who need it most. With intuitive interfaces and easy-to-use dashboards, both technical and non-technical users can analyze data, generate reports, and make informed decisions independently. This democratization of data leads to faster decision-making, greater agility, and a culture where everyone—from marketing to operations—can contribute to business growth.

Ensuring Compliance and Governance in Regulated Industries

For organizations in regulated sectors like finance, healthcare, and energy, data intelligence is the backbone of compliance. Robust data governance frameworks ensure that sensitive data is cataloged, access is controlled, and every action is auditable. This not only protects against regulatory penalties but also builds trust with customers and partners. Automated compliance checks, detailed documentation, and clear data ownership enable innovation while maintaining regulatory compliance. In practice, this means banks can deliver trusted data products securely, and manufacturers can onboard thousands of employees with the confidence that data access is well-governed.

Fostering Collaboration and Innovation by Making Trusted Data Accessible

Innovation doesn’t happen in silos. When teams across departments can easily find, trust, and use the data they need, they collaborate more effectively and spark new ideas. Data intelligence platforms break down barriers by unifying data from disparate sources, enabling seamless sharing and real-time insights. This collaborative environment not only improves efficiency but also uncovers opportunities for growth, better customer experiences, and smarter business strategies. For example, when a property management company connects data across 74,000 properties, every team—from finance to field operations—can work from trusted data, driving sustainable growth and smarter decisions.

“The Actian Data Intelligence Platform allows us to find and access data across our organization, enabling us to remain competitive, innovate, and effectively serve audiences and advertisers.” — Mikko Eskola, Data Director, Sanoma Media Finland

The Bottom Line

Data intelligence solutions, like the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, are empowering people to do their best work. The Actian platform accelerates time-to-value through automation, puts insights in the hands of business users, ensures compliance and governance, and fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation. In a world where data is everywhere, the organizations that harness its power most effectively will lead the way.

Ready to see how data intelligence can transform your organization? Explore the infographic and learn how Actian customers are leveraging data intelligence to fuel better business outcomes.

See Data Intelligence in Action

Ready to see how data intelligence can transform your organization? Explore the Actian Data Intelligence Platform and discover how you can accelerate analytics, ensure compliance, and empower your teams with trusted, actionable data.

Take the product tour and unlock the full value of your data today!

About Traci Curran

Traci Curran is Director of Product Marketing at Actian, focusing on the Actian Data Platform. With 20+ years in tech marketing, Traci has led launches at startups and established enterprises like CloudBolt Software. She specializes in communicating how digital transformation and cloud technologies drive competitive advantage. Traci's articles on the Actian blog demonstrate how to leverage the Data Platform for agile innovation. Explore her posts to accelerate your data initiatives.

Webinars

Medallion Architecture & Shift-Left Governance: The Foundation for AI

Actian Corporation

July 7, 2025

To power the next wave of AI and advanced analytics, data leaders know that success starts with a reliable data platform. The goal is clear, but building a system that delivers trusted, high-quality data at scale remains a profound challenge. How do you ensure the data fueling your most critical business decisions is sound?

The answer may lie in two critical concepts: medallion architecture – a proven architectural pattern, and a shift-left approach to governance.

Medallion Architecture: A Framework for Structured Trust

The medallion architecture provides the blueprint. By systematically layering data from its raw state (Bronze) to a validated and enriched form (Silver) and finally to a highly curated, business-ready state (Gold), it creates a predictable path to quality. However, this architecture becomes more powerful when combined with a “shift-left” approach to governance.

Why Shift-Left Governance Completes the Picture

A medallion framework becomes significantly more powerful when combined with a shift-left approach to governance. Shifting left means embedding trust and quality checks as early as possible in the data lifecycle, closer to the source. It’s a proactive strategy to prevent data issues, rather than just cleaning them up downstream.

This combination of a solid architectural framework and early, embedded governance is the key to building truly reliable, AI-ready data platforms.

To explore how these ideas connect in the real world, we are launching Data, Explored—our new webinar series for data leaders—with a discussion dedicated to this critical topic.

The Big Medallion Architecture Debate

Pragmatic Perspectives on Layering, Trust, and Real-World Architectures

[Watch on Demand!]

Meet the Speakers: We are honored to host two of the industry’s leading experts for a live, practical conversation:

Piethein Strengholt: The celebrated O’Reilly author of Building Medallion Architectures and Data Management at Scale. An enterprise architect known for designing and scaling robust data platforms in complex environments.
Ole Olesen Bagneux: Our Chief Evangelist at Actian and author of The Enterprise Data Catalog. A thought leader specializing in metadata, governance, and making decentralized data strategies a reality.

What You’ll Learn

This session is designed for practitioners. We’re moving past theory to focus on what it truly takes to build and manage a high-performing data platform. We will explore:

The Blueprint for AI-Ready Data: How the medallion architecture provides a systematic path to the trusted, high-quality data that AI and analytics models demand.
The ‘Shift-Left’ Imperative: Why proactive, early-stage governance is critical for building scalable trust and how to implement it without overburdening your teams.
Achieving Trust at Scale: Strategies for ensuring data quality and reliability, even when dealing with varied and imperfect data sources.
Architecture and Observability: How a clear architectural pattern, complemented by end-to-end visibility, creates a truly reliable and manageable data estate.

Expect a straightforward and honest conversation focused on actionable insights. Piethein will share core principles from his new book, while Ole will connect these foundational ideas to the observability and intelligence required to make any modern data platform succeed.

Who is This For?

If you are an architect, platform lead, governance professional, or data strategist tasked with building a reliable, high-value data platform, this session is for you.

Data, Explored is our new webinar series for practical, insightful conversations that help data leaders succeed. Join us for our first episode to refine your architectural strategy and get answers from those who have built it before.

[Watch on Demand]

About Actian Corporation

Data Governance

Shift-Left Governance: The Smart Way to Build Trust in Data

Dee Radh

July 3, 2025

blue wave depicting shift left governance

We all know the growing pressures that organizations like yours face. You need to deliver products and services faster, innovate before your competitors, and stay compliant while meeting always-evolving customer, partner, and internal stakeholder needs. Moving at a fast pace can give your business an edge, but it can also create blind spots in data quality, security, and compliance. That’s where shift-left governance can play an important role.

You’ve probably heard of the shift-left approach in software testing. It brings testing earlier into the development cycle to catch bugs sooner. Shift-left governance follows the same principle. Instead of treating governance as an afterthought, once data is already available for use cases, you embed it earlier in the data lifecycle. This enables better decisions based on reliable data, resulting in fewer fire drills to improve quality and promoting a culture of data accountability from the start.

What does shift-left governance actually look like in practice? And how can it help you do more with your data while decreasing risk? Here are the details:

What Exactly is Shift-Left Governance?

At its core, shift-left governance integrates controls, policies, and oversight into systems and workflows at the point of data creation, rather than applying them later during audits or reviews. Think of it as governance by design rather than governance by enforcement. This approach essentially treats data like code, with contracts, validations, and compliance embedded into workflows to make sure that as data moves downstream, it has the quality and governance needed for your use cases.

By bringing governance into the flow of data early, you empower data users to move fast and stay compliant. You also transition data governance from a bottleneck into a business accelerator that supports agility without compromising overall control of data assets.

For example, instead of relying on a centralized data team to validate a data product after it’s made available for usage, analysts and others can choose from trusted, governed data assets. Likewise, in a shift-left approach, business analysts and other data users are assured of quality and compliance from the start, without requiring a manual review after the fact. This eliminates the need to reactively address quality issues after they’ve caused potentially time-consuming and expensive issues in downstream apps, AI models, or other use cases.

Why This Approach to Governance Matters Now

Many organizations have prioritized a digital transformation over the last few years. A digital-first environment requires agility. When it comes to data, having agility without governance is a sure-fire way to increase risk, erode trust in data, and invite regulatory headaches. That’s why business and IT leaders are realizing that traditional, top-down governance models just can’t keep pace with modern needs.

Data ecosystems at large enterprises are often distributed, and self-service is the norm. Data teams want autonomy, but that doesn’t mean governance can be optional.

Shift-left governance bridges the gap by:

Accelerating data delivery. With built-in governance guardrails, your data teams can access and use data faster without waiting for reviews and approvals.
Increasing trust. When data is governed at the source, you can trust the data products you’re using, eliminating second-guessing and building confidence in your insights.
Reducing downstream risk. Preventing quality or compliance issues early is always less expensive and easier than fixing them later.

Real-World Examples Highlight Shift-Left in Action

The benefits of applying shift-left governance include:

Supporting self-service analytics. A retail company launched a self-service analytics program to democratize insights into sales. Rather than manually reviewing every dashboard after creation, it uses a modern data catalog to certify data sources and enforce metadata requirements upfront. Business users are prompted to tag reports with context, such as data owners and update frequency, before they’re published. As a result, data stewards can govern data at scale without slowing down decision making.
Mitigating bugs in code. A global bank implemented DevSecOps practices to reduce security vulnerabilities in its code. The bank’s developers use integrated development environment (IDE) plugins that flag potentially insecure code patterns, then suggest policy-compliant alternatives in real time. Governance is no longer a barrier. Instead, it’s a built-in mechanism that makes compliance natural.
Automating patient onboarding. A healthcare organization deployed an AI-powered intake bot to automate patient onboarding. Instead of retroactively checking HIPAA compliance, the team uses a governance model that includes data masking and access controls at the point of data integration. Every workflow includes built-in audit trails and consent logging, without manual intervention.

Best Practices for Adopting Shift-Left Governance

Making the move to shift-left governance isn’t about buying a new tool. It’s about rethinking how governance supports your current business. These five tips can help you get started:

Identify governance bottlenecks and friction points. Where does governance slow down processes? These are prime targets for applying shift-left best practices.
Partner with business and data teams. Governance should enable and even accelerate value creation, not restrict it. Develop governance policies with all stakeholders so they’re aligned with how business and data teams work.
Automate and integrate data processes. Bring together and automate data classification, data access provisioning, and policy enforcement as much as possible. Ensure there’s transparency and accountability across data processes.
Provide governance context early. Make it easy for data analysts and other users to see data quality scores, compliance statuses, and usage policies in real time. Make context visible, not buried in documentation.
Measure what matters with regard to data usage. Track improvements in speed, compliance rates, and issue reduction. This helps you prove the value of shift-left investments and refine governance over time.

The Future of Governance is Embedded

Implementing shift-left governance doesn’t entail adding more rules or layers of complexity. Instead, you bake in smart, contextual, and automated oversight where it matters most—at the point data is created or ingested.

By moving governance closer to the point of origin, you reduce risk and build trust. As you optimize data for AI, innovation, and decision making, you need governance that can keep up with the pace of your business. With shift left, you don’t have to choose between control and speed because you get both.

Find out how Actian Data Observability supports shift-left governance by helping you identify and fix data issues before they move downstream. See the product tour.

About Dee Radh

As Senior Director of Product Marketing, Dee Radh heads product marketing for Actian. Prior to that, she held senior PMM roles at Talend and Formstack. Dee has spent 100% of her career bringing technology products to market. Her expertise lies in developing strategic narratives and differentiated positioning for GTM effectiveness. In addition to a post-graduate diploma from the University of Toronto, Dee has obtained certifications from Pragmatic Institute, Product Marketing Alliance, and Reforge. Dee is based out of Toronto, Canada.

Actian Life

What Today’s Data Events Reveal About Tomorrow’s Enterprise Priorities

Liz Brown

July 1, 2025

After attending several industry events over the last few months—from Gartner® Data & Analytics Summit in Orlando to the Databricks Data + AI Summit in San Francisco to regional conferences—it’s clear that some themes are becoming prevalent for enterprises across all industries. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a buzzword dropped into conversations—it is the conversation.

Granted, we’ve been hearing about AI and GenAI for the last few years, but the presentations, booth messaging, sessions, and discussions at events have quickly evolved as organizations are now implementing actual use cases. Not surprisingly, at least to those of us who have advocated for data quality at scale throughout our careers, the launch of AI use cases has given rise to a familiar but growing challenge. That challenge is ensuring data quality and governance for the extremely large volumes of data that companies are managing for AI and other uses.

As someone who’s fortunate enough to spend a lot of time meeting with data and business leaders at conferences, I have a front-row seat to what’s resonating and what’s still frustrating organizations in their data ecosystems. Here are five key takeaways:

1. AI has a Data Problem, and Everyone Knows It

At every event I’ve attended recently, a familiar phrase kept coming up: “garbage in, garbage out.” Organizations are excited about AI’s potential, but they’re worried about the quality of the data feeding their models. We’ve moved from talking about building and fine-tuning models to talking about data readiness, specifically how to ensure data is clean, governed, and AI-ready to deliver trusted outcomes.

“Garbage in, garbage out” is an old adage, but it holds true today, especially as enterprises look to optimize AI across their business. Data and analytics leaders are emphasizing the importance of data governance, metadata, and trust. They’re realizing that data quality issues can quickly cause major downstream issues that are time-consuming and expensive to fix. The fact is everyone is investing or looking to invest in AI. Now the race is on to ensure those investments pay off, which requires quality data.

2. Old Data Challenges are Now Bigger and Move Faster

Issues such as data governance and data quality aren’t new. The difference is that they have now been amplified by the scale and speed of today’s enterprise data environments. Fifteen years ago, if something went wrong with a data pipeline, maybe a report was late. Today, one data quality issue can cascade through dozens of systems, impact customer experiences in real time, and train AI on flawed inputs. In other words, problems scale.

This is why data observability is essential. Only monitoring infrastructure is not enough anymore. Organizations need end-to-end visibility into data flows, lineage, quality metrics, and anomalies. And they need to mitigate issues before they move downstream and cause disruption. At Actian, we’ve seen how data observability capabilities, including real-time alerts, custom metrics, and native integration with tools like JIRA, resonate strongly with customers. Companies must move beyond fixing problems after the fact to proactively identifying and addressing issues early in the data lifecycle.

3. Metadata is the Unsung Hero of Data Intelligence

While AI and observability steal the spotlight at conferences, metadata is quietly becoming a top differentiator. Surprisingly, metadata management wasn’t front and center at most events I attended, but it should be. Metadata provides the context, traceability, and searchability that data teams need to scale responsibly and deliver trusted data products.

For example, with the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, all metadata is managed by a federated knowledge graph. The platform enables smart data usage through integrated metadata, governance, and AI automation. Whether a business user is searching for a data product or a data steward is managing lineage and access, metadata makes the data ecosystem more intelligent and easier to use.

4. Data Intelligence is Catching On

I’ve seen a noticeable uptick in how vendors talk about “data intelligence.” It’s becoming increasingly discussed as part of modern platforms, and for good reason. Data intelligence brings together cataloging, governance, and collaboration in a way that’s advantageous for both IT and business teams.

While we’re seeing other vendors enter this space, I believe Actian’s competitive edge lies in our simplicity and scalability. We provide intuitive tools for data exploration, flexible catalog models, and ready-to-use data products backed by data contracts. These aren’t just features. They’re business enablers that allow users at all skill levels to quickly and easily access the data they need.

5. The Culture Around Data Access is Changing

One of the most interesting shifts I’ve noticed is a tradeoff, if not friction, between data democratization and data protection. Chief data officers and data stewards want to empower teams with self-service analytics, but they also need to ensure sensitive information is protected.

The new mindset isn’t “open all data to everyone” or “lock it all down” but instead a strategic approach that delivers smart access control. For example, a marketer doesn’t need access to customer phone numbers, while a sales rep might. Enabling granular control over data access based on roles and context, right down to the row and column level, is a top priority.

Data Intelligence is More Than a Trend

Some of the most meaningful insights I gain at events take place through unstructured, one-on-one interactions. Whether it’s chatting over dinner with customers or striking up a conversation with a stranger before a breakout session, these moments help us understand what really matters to businesses.

While AI may be the main topic right now, it’s clear that data intelligence will determine how well enterprises actually deliver on AI’s promise. That means prioritizing data quality, trust, observability, access, and governance, all built on a foundation of rich metadata. At the end of the day, building a smart, AI-ready enterprise starts with something deceptively simple—better data.

When I’m at events, I encourage attendees who visit with Actian to experience a product tour. That’s because once data leaders see what trusted, intelligent data can do, it changes the way they think about data, use cases, and outcomes.

About Liz Brown

Liz Brown is a high-energy, results-driven marketing professional with a proven track record of driving business growth and inspiring, mentoring, and enabling colleagues and peers. Known for her strategic thinking and collaborative leadership, Liz excels at building impactful marketing strategies, ABM programs, and enablement initiatives tailored to top accounts and industries. She has extensive experience in brand positioning, integrated campaigns, and customer engagement, from large-scale events to targeted digital initiatives.

Data Observability

What is Data Downtime?

Actian Corporation

June 26, 2025

Data downtime occurs when data is missing, inaccurate, delayed, or otherwise unusable. The effects ripple through an organization by disrupting operations, misleading decision-makers, and eroding trust in systems. Understanding what data downtime is, why it matters, and how to prevent it is essential for any organization that relies on data to drive performance and innovation.

The Definition of Data Downtime

Data downtime refers to any period during which data is inaccurate, missing, incomplete, delayed, or otherwise unavailable for use. This downtime can affect internal analytics, customer-facing dashboards, automated decision systems, or machine learning pipelines.

Unlike traditional system downtime, which is often clearly measurable, data downtime can be silent and insidious. Data pipelines may continue running, dashboards may continue loading, but the information being processed or displayed may be wrong, incomplete, or delayed. This makes it even more dangerous, as issues can go unnoticed until they cause significant damage.

Why Data Downtime Matters to Organizations

Organizations depend on reliable data to:

Power real-time dashboards.
Make strategic decisions.
Serve personalized customer experiences.
Maintain compliance.
Run predictive models.

When data becomes unreliable, it undermines each of these functions. Whether it’s a marketing campaign using outdated data or a supply chain decision based on faulty inputs, the result is often lost revenue, inefficiency, and diminished trust.

Causes of Data Downtime

Understanding the root causes of data downtime is key to preventing it. The causes generally fall into three broad categories.

Technical Failures

These include infrastructure or system issues that prevent data from being collected, processed, or delivered correctly. Examples include:

Broken ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) pipelines.
Server crashes or cloud outages.
Schema changes that break data dependencies.
Latency or timeout issues in APIs and data sources.

Even the most sophisticated data systems can experience downtime if not properly maintained and monitored.

Human Errors

Humans are often the weakest link in any system, and data systems are no exception. Common mistakes include:

Misconfigured jobs or scripts.
Deleting or modifying data unintentionally.
Incorrect logic in data transformations.
Miscommunication between engineering and business teams.

Without proper controls and processes, even a minor mistake can cause major data reliability issues.

External Factors

Sometimes, events outside the organization’s control contribute to data downtime. These include:

Third-party vendor failures.
Regulatory changes affecting data flow or storage.
Cybersecurity incidents such as ransomware attacks.
Natural disasters or power outages.

While not always preventable, the impact of these events can be mitigated with the right preparations and redundancies.

Impact of Data Downtime on Businesses

Data downtime is not just a technical inconvenience; it can also be a significant business disruption with serious consequences.

Operational Disruptions

When business operations rely on data to function, data downtime can halt progress. For instance:

Sales teams may lose visibility into performance metrics.
Inventory systems may become outdated, leading to stockouts.
Customer service reps may lack access to accurate information.

These disruptions can delay decision-making, reduce productivity, and negatively impact customer experience.

Financial Consequences

The financial cost of data downtime can be staggering, especially in sectors such as finance, e-commerce, and logistics. Missed opportunities, incorrect billing, and lost transactions all have a direct impact on the bottom line. For example:

A flawed pricing model due to incorrect data could lead to lost sales.
Delayed reporting may result in regulatory fines.
A faulty recommendation engine could hurt conversion rates.

Reputational Damage

Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. When customers, partners, or stakeholders discover that a company’s data is flawed or unreliable, the reputational hit can be long-lasting.

Customers may experience problems with ordering or receiving goods.
Investors may question the reliability of reporting.
Internal teams may lose confidence in data-driven strategies.

Data transparency is a differentiator for businesses, and reputational damage can be more costly than technical repairs in the long run.

Calculating the Cost of Data Downtime

Understanding the true cost of data downtime requires a comprehensive look at both direct and indirect impacts.

Direct and Indirect Costs

Direct costs include things like:

SLA penalties.
Missed revenue.
Extra staffing hours for remediation.

Indirect costs are harder to measure but equally damaging:

Loss of customer trust.
Delays in decision-making.
Decreased employee morale.

Quantifying these costs can help build a stronger business case for investing in data reliability solutions.

Industry-Specific Impacts

The cost of data downtime varies by industry.

Financial Services: A delayed or incorrect trade execution can result in millions of dollars in losses.
Retail: A single hour of product pricing errors during a sale can lead to thousands of missed sales or customer churn.
Healthcare: Inaccurate patient data can lead to misdiagnoses or regulatory violations.

Understanding the specific stakes for an organization’s industry is crucial when prioritizing investment in data reliability.

Long-Term Financial Implications

Recurring or prolonged data downtime doesn’t just cause short-term losses; it erodes long-term value. Over time, companies may experience:

Slower product development due to data mistrust.
Reduced competitiveness from poor decision-making.
Higher acquisition costs from churned customers.

Ultimately, organizations that cannot ensure consistent data quality will struggle to scale effectively.

How to Prevent Data Downtime

Preventing data downtime requires a holistic approach that combines technology, processes, and people.

Implementing Data Observability

Data observability is the practice of understanding the health of data systems through monitoring metadata like freshness, volume, schema, distribution, and lineage. By implementing observability platforms, organizations can:

Detect anomalies before they cause damage.
Monitor end-to-end data flows.
Understand the root cause of data issues.

This proactive approach is essential in preventing and minimizing data downtime.

Enhancing Data Governance

Strong data governance ensures that roles, responsibilities, and standards are clearly defined. Key governance practices include:

Data cataloging and classification.
Access controls and permissions.
Audit trails and version control.
Clear ownership for each dataset or pipeline.

When governance is embedded into the data culture of an organization, errors and downtime become less frequent and easier to resolve.

Regular System Maintenance

Proactive system maintenance can help avoid downtime caused by technical failures. Best practices include:

Routine testing and validation of pipelines.
Scheduled backups and failover plans.
Continuous integration and deployment practices.
Ongoing performance optimization.

Just like physical infrastructure, data infrastructure needs regular care to remain reliable.

Actian Can Help Organize Data and Reduce Data Downtime

Data downtime is a serious threat to operational efficiency, decision-making, and trust in modern organizations. While its causes are varied, its consequences are universally damaging. Fortunately, by embracing tools like data observability and solutions like the Actian Data Intelligence Platform, businesses can detect issues faster, prevent failures, and build resilient data systems.

Actian offers a range of products and solutions to help organizations manage their data and reduce or prevent data downtime. Key capabilities include:

Actian Data Intelligence Platform: A cloud-native platform that supports real-time analytics, data integration, and pipeline management across hybrid environments.
End-to-End Visibility: Monitor data freshness, volume, schema changes, and performance in one unified interface.
Automated Recovery Tools: Quickly detect and resolve issues with intelligent alerts and remediation workflows.
Secure, Governed Data Access: Built-in governance features help ensure data integrity and regulatory compliance.

Organizations that use Actian can improve data trust, accelerate analytics, and eliminate costly disruptions caused by unreliable data.

About Actian Corporation

Product Launches

Data Contracts, AI Search, and More: Actian’s Spring ’25 Product Launch

Dee Radh

June 24, 2025

Summary

This blog introduces Actian’s Spring 2025 launch, featuring 15 new capabilities that improve data governance, observability, productivity, and end-to-end integration across the data stack.

Actian’s new federated data contracts give teams full control over distributed data product creation and lifecycle management.
Ask AI and natural language search integrations boost productivity for business users across BI tools and browsers.
Enhanced observability features deliver real-time alerts, SQL-based metrics, and auto-generated incident tickets to reduce resolution time.

Actian’s Spring 2025 launch introduces 15 powerful new capabilities across our cloud and on-premises portfolio that help modern data teams navigate complex data landscapes while delivering ongoing business value.

Whether you’re a data steward working to establish governance at the source, a data engineer seeking to reduce incident response times, or a business leader looking to optimize data infrastructure costs, these updates deliver immediate, measurable impact.

What’s new in the Actian Cloud Portfolio

Leading this launch is an upgrade to our breakthrough data contract first functionality that enables true decentralized data management with enterprise-wide federated governance, allowing data producers to build and publish trusted data assets while maintaining centralized control. Combined with AI-powered natural language search through Ask AI and enhanced observability with custom SQL metrics, our cloud portfolio delivers real value for modern data teams.

Actian Data Intelligence

Decentralized Data Management Without Sacrificing Governance

The Actian Data Intelligence Platform (formerly Zeenea) now supports a complete data products and contracts workflow. Achieve scalable, decentralized data management by enabling individual domains to design, manage, and publish tailored data products into a federated data marketplace for broader consumption.

Combined with governance-by-design through data contracts integrated into CI/CD pipelines, this approach ensures governed data from source to consumption, keeping metadata consistently updated.

Organizations no longer need to choose between development velocity and catalog accuracy; they can achieve both simultaneously. Data producers who previously spent hours on labor-intensive tasks can now focus on quickly building data products, while business users gain access to consistently trustworthy data assets with clear contracts for proper usage.

Ask AI Transforms How Teams Find and Understand Data

Ask AI, an AI-powered natural language query system, changes how users interact with their data catalog. Users can ask questions in plain English and receive contextually relevant results with extractive summaries.

This semantic search capability goes far beyond traditional keyword matching. Ask AI understands the intent, searches across business glossaries and data models, and returns not just matching assets but concise summaries that directly answer the question. The feature automatically identifies whether users are asking questions versus performing keyword searches, adapting the search mechanism accordingly.

Business analysts no longer need to rely on data engineers to interpret data definitions, and new team members can become productive immediately without extensive training on the data catalog.

Chrome Extension Brings Context Directly to Your Workflow

Complementing Ask AI, our new Chrome Extension automatically highlights business terms and KPIs within BI tools. When users hover over highlighted terms, they instantly see standardized definitions pulled directly from the data catalog, without leaving their reports or dashboards.

For organizations with complex BI ecosystems, this feature improves data literacy while ensuring consistent interpretation of business metrics across teams.

Enhanced Tableau and Power BI Integration

Our expanded BI tool integration provides automated metadata extraction and detailed field-to-field lineage for both Tableau and Power BI environments.

For data engineers managing complex BI environments, this eliminates the manual effort required to trace data lineage across reporting tools. When business users question the accuracy of a dashboard metric, data teams can now provide complete lineage information in seconds.

Actian Data Observability

Custom SQL Metrics Eliminate Data Blind Spots

Actian Data Observability now supports fully custom SQL metrics. Unlike traditional observability tools that limit monitoring to predefined metrics, this capability allows teams to create unlimited metric time series using the full expressive power of SQL.

The impact on data reliability is immediate and measurable. Teams can now detect anomalies in business-critical metrics before they affect downstream systems or customer-facing applications.

Actionable Notifications With Embedded Visuals

When data issues occur, context is everything. Our enhanced notification system now embeds visual representations of key metrics directly within email and Slack alerts. Data teams get immediate visual context about the severity and trend of issues without navigating to the observability tool.

This visual approach to alerting transforms incident response workflows. On-call engineers can assess the severity of issues instantly and prioritize their response accordingly.

Automated JIRA Integration and a new Centralized Incident Management Hub

Every detected data incident now automatically creates a JIRA ticket with relevant context, metrics, and suggested remediation steps. This seamless integration ensures no data quality issues slip through the cracks while providing a complete audit trail for compliance and continuous improvement efforts.

Mean time to resolution (MTTR) improves dramatically when incident tickets are automatically populated with relevant technical context, and the new incident management hub facilitates faster diagnosis and resolution.

Redesigned Connection Flow Empowers Distributed Teams

Managing data connections across large organizations has always been a delicate balance between security and agility. Our redesigned connection creation flow addresses this challenge by enabling central IT teams to manage credentials and security configurations while allowing distributed data teams to manage their data assets independently.

This decoupled approach means faster time-to-value for new data initiatives without compromising security or governance standards.

Expanded Google Cloud Storage Support

We’ve added wildcard support for Google Cloud Storage file paths, enabling more flexible monitoring of dynamic and hierarchical data structures. Teams managing large-scale data lakes can now monitor entire directory structures with a single configuration, automatically detecting new files and folders as they’re created.

What’s New in the Actian On-Premises Portfolio

Our DataConnect 12.4 release delivers powerful new capabilities for organizations that require on-premises data management solutions, with enhanced automation, privacy protection, and data preparation features.

DataConnect v12.4

Automated Rule Creation with Inspect and Recommend

The new Inspect and Recommend feature analyzes datasets and automatically suggests context-appropriate quality rules.

This capability addresses one of the most significant barriers to effective data quality management: the time and expertise required to define comprehensive quality rules for diverse datasets. Instead of requiring extensive manual analysis, users can now generate, customize, and implement effective quality rules directly from their datasets in minutes.

Advanced Multi-Field Conditional Rules

We now support multi-field, conditional profiling and remediation rules, enabling comprehensive, context-aware data quality assessments. These advanced rules can analyze relationships across multiple fields, not just individual columns, and automatically trigger remediation actions when quality issues are detected.

For organizations with stringent compliance requirements, this capability is particularly valuable.

Data Quality Index Provides Executive Visibility

The new Data Quality Index feature provides a simple, customizable dashboard that allows non-technical stakeholders to quickly understand the quality level of any dataset. Organizations can configure custom dimensions and weights for each field, ensuring that quality metrics align with specific business priorities and use cases.

Instead of technical quality metrics that require interpretation, the Data Quality Index provides clear, business-relevant indicators that executives can understand and act upon.

Streamlined Schema Evolution

Our new data preparation functionality enables users to augment and standardize schemas directly within the platform, eliminating the need for separate data preparation tools. This integrated approach offers the flexibility to add, reorder, or standardize data as needed while maintaining data integrity and supporting scalable operations.

Flexible Masking and Anonymization

Expanded data privacy capabilities provide sophisticated masking and anonymization options to help organizations protect sensitive information while maintaining data utility for analytics and development purposes. These capabilities are essential for organizations subject to regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, and PCI-DSS.

Beyond compliance requirements, these capabilities enable safer data sharing with third parties, partners, and research teams.

Take Action

Join the Corinium webinar Data Contract First Governance: Building Trust Through Data Products
Download the eBook Putting Data Contracts First: The Engineer’s Guide to Data Trust
Contact us to schedule a demo and see these new features in action

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Inside Actian’s Research: Why Data Governance Threatens AI Success

What 600 enterprise data leaders revealed about maturity gaps, AI readiness, and what to do next

A Confidence Gap With Consequences

Why Data Governance is the Differentiator for AI

Beyond Tech: Strategy, Skills, and Culture Remain the Real Barriers

Who’s Governing the Data?

Introducing the Actian Confidata Index

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Why Federated Knowledge Graphs are the Missing Link in Your AI Strategy

Knowledge Graph vs. Federated Knowledge Graph

Real-World Example of a Federated Knowledge Graph in Action

Why Federated Knowledge Graphs Matter

How Federated Knowledge Graphs Support AI Automation

Complementing Data Mesh and Data Fabric

A Smarter Foundation for AI

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Data Observability vs. Data Monitoring

What is Data Observability?

Components of Data Observability

Benefits of Implementing Data Observability

What is Data Monitoring?

Components of Data Monitoring

Benefits of Data Monitoring

Key Differences Between Data Observability and Data Monitoring

Scope and Depth of Analysis

Proactive vs. Reactive Approaches

Data Insights and Decision-Making

How Data Observability and Monitoring Work Together

Complementary Roles in Data Management

Enhancing System Reliability and Performance

Choosing the Right Strategy for An Organization

Assessing Organizational Needs

Evaluating Tools and Technologies

Implementing a Balanced Approach

Use Actian to Enhance Data Observability and Data Monitoring

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Understanding Structural Metadata

What is Structural Metadata?

Key Features of Structural Metadata

Why is Structural Metadata Important?

Challenges of Managing Structural Metadata

How Actian Can Help Organize and Manage Structural Metadata for Better Data Discovery

1. Centralized Metadata Repository

2. Automated Metadata Ingestion

3. Data Lineage and Relationships

4. Data Classification and Tagging

5. Searchable Metadata Catalog

6. Collaboration and Transparency

7. Data Governance and Compliance

Get a Tour of the Actian Data Intelligence Platform Today

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