“It is fair to say that most organisations are using the cloud today – either as an aggressive “cloud-first” strategy or on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis “, says Gary Allemann, MD at Master Data Management. “In either case, it is fair to say that very few organisations have standardised on a single cloud provider, with most adopting some form of hybrid cloud strategy.”

“This approach is not without its perils. Companies must learn to apply traditional data management competencies across a range of disparate and complex environments. The EDM Council brought together leading cloud providers, data management companies and regulatory bodies to put together the first playbook for cloud data management – the Cloud Data Management Capabilities Framework or CDMC.”

The CDMC framework is the industry-standard, best practice framework for the management and control of sensitive and important data in cloud, multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments.

The framework sets out a foundation of six data management components that organisations must establish to manage data responsibly and comply with applicable regulatory entities:

According to Mike Meriton, COO of the EDM Council, the CDMC focuses on “what to do” rather than “how to do it”.

“The 14 key controls specified by CDMC are the global recommendations of what is needed for good hygiene and protecting sensitive data. It does not dictate their coding and their ingenuity on how to solve this [but provides] a common set of requirements,” says Meriton.

Companies looking to avoid common cloud deployment pitfalls can download the framework and accelerate their learning by taking the online CDMC course and certification, developed by eLearningCurve and the EDM Council. Cross-platform data security and governance platforms like Okera can play a role in several controls in the CDMC framework. Okera CEO, Nong Li shares some valuable advice for companies looking to get started.

For most enterprises, cloud investments can include massive data platforms, multiple departments and many use cases. Li recommends completing one use case that captures all of those controls so “you can see the whole thing work end to end — one department, one use case, one team. And from there, take all those lessons, and you can really roll things out very quickly.”