Discover the Microsoft Purview toolkit and learn how it can help you to establish effective data governance within your organisation.
What is Microsoft Purview?
Microsoft Purview is an integrated data governance and compliance solution that provides a unified view of data across your organisation. Launched by Microsoft to address the growing need for data governance, Purview helps organisations to discover, classify and manage their data, while ensuring regulatory compliance. Designed for hybrid and multi-Cloud environments, Purview doesn’t just enable governance of data hosted in Azure, but also data that is stored elsewhere, whether that is in Clouds, on-premises or in SaaS applications.
What is Microsoft Purview?
The main objective of Microsoft Purview is to facilitate the management of corporate data by ensuring effective governance and reducing the risks associated with non-compliance. By enabling companies to understand where their data is stored, who has access to it, and how it is used, Purview plays a key role in securing sensitive information. It also provides tools to automate data classification, track usage and ensure compliance policies are adhered to throughout the organisation.
Key features of Microsoft Purview
Mapping your data
One of the flagship features of Microsoft Purview is its ability to map data. This means that the tool can automatically scan data sources irrespective of where they are stored (in the Cloud or on-premises) and provide a global view of data assets. This mapping provides a better understanding of where data is located, how it flows, and how it is connected to each other, facilitating analysis and decision-making.
Managing risk and compliance
Purview helps identify data risks by offering compliance management tools. It generates reports and analyses that enable organisations to ensure that their data is managed in a way that remains compliant with local and international regulations (such as GDPR, LIPAD, etc.). In addition, Purview helps to prevent breaches by identifying sensitive data and applying appropriate protection policies.
Protecting sensitive data
It is important to protect sensitive data, especially in an environment where cyberthreats are a constant presence. Microsoft Purview uses advanced data classification and protection mechanisms, allowing companies to define precise rules for managing sensitive information. This includes encryption, access management and real-time data monitoring to detect and prevent suspicious activity.
Integrating governance policies
Purview makes it possible to integrate data governance policies at organisational level by centralising the creation, management and enforcement of these policies. This includes access management, data classification and the automatic enforcement of compliance rules. Using Purview, companies can ensure that all data is managed to the same governance standards, irrespective of where it is stored.
The 4 benefits of Microsoft Purview
Better data visibility
Microsoft Purview offers unrivalled visibility over all corporate data. This visibility not only gives you a better understanding of where your data is stored, but also who might have access to it and how it is used. This level of transparency facilitates decision-making and optimises resources.
Reducing the risk of non-compliance
By using the compliance monitoring and management tools in Purview, companies can identify and mitigate the risks associated with non-compliance. By automating data classification and monitoring governance policies, Purview significantly reduces the risk of sanctions for non-compliance with regulations.
Improving data security
By providing robust data protection mechanisms, such as encryption and access management, Purview significantly improves the security of sensitive information. As a result, companies can prevent leakage of their data and strengthen their overall security position.
Optimising governance processes
Purview simplifies and centralises the management of governance policies, enabling companies to optimise their data management processes. This centralisation simplifies administrative processes and ensures uniform application of any rules throughout the organisation.
How do I use Microsoft Purview?
Know your data: defining your corporate taxonomy
The first step to effectively using Microsoft Purview is to understand your data. This starts with the comprehensive mapping of your data sources, whether on-premises or in the Cloud. This mapping identifies where your data is stored, how it flows and whether there are any interconnections. Next, it’s crucial to identify the different categories of data, establishing a taxonomy that reflects your company’s specific needs. Finally, it is necessary to determine the degree of confidentiality for each type of data, therefore making it possible to classify information according to its sensitivity and to define appropriate protection policies.
Protect your data: secure your data
Once your data has been understood and categorised, the next step is to protect it. In order to do this, you need to set up and configure Microsoft Purview to meet the specific needs of your organisation. This includes configuring sensitivity labels, which automatically classify data according to its level of confidentiality. These labels are essential for applying security policies that protect sensitive data from unauthorised access or inappropriate sharing.
Prevent data loss
Data loss prevention is a key aspect of data governance with Microsoft Purview. Once data has been classified and protected, Purview enables policies to be put in place to prevent the inappropriate sharing of sensitive information. This includes measures that will prevent sensitive data from being sent by email, shared via unsecured platforms, or downloaded to unapproved devices. These mechanisms help minimise the risk of data leakage and ensure that critical information remains protected within the organisation.
Govern your data
Using Microsoft Purview for data governance tasks involves the automatic management of data lifecycles. This means you can define rules for retaining, deleting or archiving data based on its sensitivity, age or relevance to the business. By automating these processes, Purview helps ensure that data is managed in accordance with internal policies and external regulations, while optimising the use of storage resources and reducing the risks associated with obsolete or non-compliant data.
Comparison with other data governance solutions
Microsoft Purview vs. AWS Data Lake Governance
Microsoft Purview and AWS Data Lake Governance are two data governance solutions designed for different environments. One of the major benefits of Purview is its native integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, which offers a smoother experience for organisations already invested in Azure and Microsoft 365. On the other hand, AWS Data Lake Governance may be more advantageous for companies working with in an environment that is predominantly AWS.
Microsoft Purview vs. Google Cloud Data Catalog
Compared with Google Cloud Data Catalog, Microsoft Purview offers a more comprehensive data governance solution, including advanced risk management and compliance features. Google Cloud Data Catalog, while powerful when it comes to data discovery and classification, lacks some of the monitoring and policy management capabilities that Purview offers.
How can I integrate Microsoft Purview with other Microsoft tools?
Integration with Azure
Microsoft Purview seamlessly integrates with Azure, offering extended governance capabilities for data that is hosted on Microsoft’s Cloud platform. This integration enables data management in Azure to take place in a unified way, complete with enhanced security and compliance features.
Integration with Microsoft 365
Purview’s integration with Microsoft 365 makes it possible to govern and protect sensitive data contained in collaborative tools such as SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams. This ensures that governance policies are consistently applied across all collaboration platforms.
Integration with Power BI
Purview also integrates with Power BI to ensure the governance of data that is used in reports and dashboards. This integration makes it possible to trace from where the data has originated, ensure its quality, and protect sensitive information, all while facilitating compliance with current regulations.
Qim info will support you with Microsoft Purview
At Qim info, we understand how important it is to have effective and secure data governance. That’s why we can provide you with a team of certified experts in several key areas, including Microsoft cybersecurity architecture. Our specialists have extensive experience in implementing data governance solutions, and can support you every step of the way, from defining your strategy to configuring Microsoft Purview.
Because of our expertise, we can offer you the best possible options to meet your specific needs, whether you need to map your data, protect sensitive information or ensure compliance with current regulations. By working with us, you will benefit from tailor-made support intended to maximise the value of your data while minimising risks.
FAQs
How do I use Microsoft Purview?
Initial configuration
The first step to implementing Microsoft Purview is an initial configuration that includes integration with the company’s various data sources. It is essential to define governance and compliance objectives at this stage to get the most out of Purview’s functionality.
Navigating the user interface
Microsoft Purview’s user interface is designed to be intuitive and accessible, even for non-technical users. Efficient navigation allows users to take advantage of classification, reporting and policy management tools, facilitating the day-to-day work of data governance teams.
Creation of governance policies
The creation of governance policies is at the heart of Purview. These policies define the rules for managing data within the organisation. Specific policies can be created for different categories of data, depending on their sensitivity or use.
Monitoring and reporting
Once the policies are in place, Purview offers monitoring tools to track compliance in real time. Detailed reports can be generated to analyse compliance and identify areas of risk, which in turn will allow an informed decision to be made.
