As federal, state and local agencies amass more and more structured and unstructured data, the use of data analytics can help save time and resources in making informed decisions based on that data. However, challenges remain as agencies struggle to find the right skill set and manage the complexity of implementations for multi-structured data platforms.

In some ways, data has become just as much a colleague to federal IT managers as the person sitting next to them. Sure, data can’t pick up a burrito for you at lunchtime, but it’s still extraordinarily important to agency operations. Data keeps things going so that everyone in the agency can do their jobs – just like your fellow IT professionals.

Data is an incredibly important asset. Unfortunately, too many agencies continue to treat data as an easily replaced commodity.

But we’re not talking about a database administrator’s (DBA) iTunes library. We’re talking highly sensitive and important government data that can be too easily lost or compromised.

It’s time to stop treating data as a commodity and create a secure and reliable data recovery plan by following a few core strategies.

So you’ve got all sorts of endpoint controls and continuous monitoring solutions in place across your agency’s IT environment. Great! Sounds like you’ve got a good security posture going on.

But is your data actually as secure as you think it is? Unfortunately, not.

If there’s one thing that cyberattacks on government systems have taught us in the past few years is that the biggest threat doesn’t come from rogue hackers or nations, it comes from within.

If you’re situated within the Washington, D.C. metro area or surrounding states, mark your calendar for the 2015 Informatica Government Summit to be held on April 23, 2015 at the Grand Hyatt Washington Hotel.

The U.S. government has spent years accumulating data sets – ranging from tax records, satellite imagery, census data, and more (up to 2.63 petabytes in the federal government alone).

Unlocking the potential of that data is a huge priority for many agencies, and gives the opportunity to discover hidden insights and improve mission effectiveness. Whether that means spotting fraud, improving regulatory oversight, optimizing business travel, or providing more effective citizen services.

With more and more software and services being offloaded to the cloud and the surge in big government data, the speed of your storage still matters – very much.

Data breaches are an unfortunate fact of life for government agencies – Edward Snowden being the most infamous case. And although agencies have taken steps to protect themselves, the growing number of breaches continues to frustrate IT and legislators alike.