Empowered Data Owners to Perform Self-Service Data Optimization in 3PB Environment for a Fortune 500 Financial Services Provider

A Fortune 500 financial services provider grappled with the growing complexity of managing 3 petabytes (PB) of unstructured data across its global operations. Unchecked data sprawl, rising compliance risks, and inefficient management processes not only inflated costs but also hindered operational agility. The company needed a scalable, self-service data optimization solution that would empower data owners, enhance governance, and drive efficiency without compromising security or compliance. By adopting Zubin, Data Dynamics’ AI-powered self-service unstructured data management software, the organization transformed its data landscape. Zubin enabled intelligent data optimization, granting greater control and visibility while ensuring security, compliance, and significant cost savings—turning a major operational challenge into a strategic advantage.

Business Need

Optimizing Data Insights, Security, and Cost Efficiency Through Self-Service Data Management
  • Scalable Data Analysis for Actionable Insights: The enterprise required a solution capable of analyzing over 3 billion files per month to extract deep, meaningful insights from unstructured data, enabling informed decision-making.
  • Self-Service Data Visibility & Reporting: Empowering end-users with real-time access to data insights was critical to improving operational efficiency. The organization needed a self-service reporting mechanism to eliminate bottlenecks and enhance transparency.
  • Eliminating ROT Data for Cost Optimization: To reduce storage costs and improve data efficiency, the company aimed to identify and delete redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data, ensuring only valuable data was retained.
  • Pre-Migration Risk Mitigation: Before migrating to SharePoint Online and OneDrive, the customer needed to detect and address unsupported file types, preventing migration failures and ensuring a seamless transition.
  • Enhancing Security by Controlling Access Permissions: With a vast, distributed workforce, the organization sought to identify and remediate inadequate permissioned data, minimizing security vulnerabilities and ensuring strict access control measures.

Challenges Faced

Overcoming Legacy Bottlenecks, Compliance Risks, and Security Vulnerabilities in Data Management
  • Slow and Inefficient Scanning Processes: Legacy data management solutions struggled with scanning large datasets efficiently, taking over three months to complete a full scan. This delay hampered operational agility and prevented timely decision-making.
  • Lack of Stakeholder Buy-in for ROT Data Deletion: Ineffective centralized data deletion policies led to hesitation among stakeholders, preventing the proactive removal of redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data, resulting in storage inefficiencies and rising costs.
  • Unpredictable Failures in Public Cloud Migrations: A lack of visibility and control during cloud migrations led to unanticipated failures, disrupting business continuity and causing delays in cloud adoption.
  • Compliance Risks from Undetected Sensitive Data: Without accurate data classification and detection, the company struggled to identify and protect sensitive data, increasing compliance risks during cloud migrations and jeopardizing regulatory adherence.
  • Security Vulnerabilities from Unmonitored Authorization Credentials: The lack of visibility into cleartext authorization credentials created critical security risks, exposing the organization to potential data breaches and unauthorized access.

Solution Offered

Implemented Zubin – our AI-powered self-service unstructured data management software for

Intelligent Data Discovery & Optimization

Utilized AI-driven rapid, lightweight metadata analytics to detect ROT data and identify security risks from inadequate permissions.

Risk Identification & Prioritization

Leveraged statistical sampling and content analytics to swiftly pinpoint sensitive data risks, enabling precise remediation.

Empowered Data Ownership & Governance

Delivered self-service reports and actionable insights, allowing data owners to delete unnecessary data and mitigate risks while staying within corporate policies.

Business Impact

Driving Cost Efficiency, Security, and Scalable Data Governance
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Optimized Storage Efficiency: Facilitated self-service ROT data deletion at scale to reclaim storage, reduce costs and drive operational savings—delivering $730K in annual savings by eliminating data untouched for over eight years.

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Seamless & Secure Migrations: Ensured 10X+ faster, risk-free migration across diverse infrastructures and to the cloud, minimizing downtime. 

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Continuous Data Visibility & Governance: Enabled fast, impact-free scans across the entire data landscape for ongoing monitoring and compliance.

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Strengthened Security & Compliance: Identified and remediated cleartext credentials and excessive permissions, closing audit gaps and enhancing security posture.

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Enterprise-Scale Data Management: Delivered centralized control with remote data engines, enabling scalable, efficient unstructured data management.

Conclusion

By leveraging Zubin, the Fortune 500 financial services provider revolutionized its unstructured data management, enabling scalable optimization, enhanced security, and seamless governance. The AI-powered, self-service approach empowered data owners to take control of their data, ensuring faster insights, risk-free migrations, and cost efficiency while maintaining compliance and operational resilience. This transformation not only streamlined data operations and reduced costs but also fortified security, improved decision-making, and positioned the customer for sustained innovation—ensuring a future-ready, intelligent data ecosystem that drives agility and competitiveness in the evolving financial landscape.
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