andmehaldusest

Andmehaldusest, or data management in Estonian, is a discipline within information management that concerns the planning, control, protection, and use of data across its lifecycle. Its aim is to ensure that data is accurate, available, consistent, secure, and usable for business decisions and everyday operations. Core activities include data governance, data quality management, metadata management, data architecture, and data security and privacy, as well as data integration and storage.

Data governance defines the roles, responsibilities, policies, and decision rights related to data assets within an organization. Data quality management focuses on measuring and improving data accuracy, completeness, timeliness, consistency, validity, and uniqueness. Metadata management involves documenting data sources, definitions, lineage, and context, often supported by data catalogs. Data architecture and modeling address the structure of data and its flows between systems, including databases, data warehouses, data lakes, and emerging concepts such as data mesh. Data integration and pipelines (ETL/ELT) move and transform data across systems, while data storage covers databases, warehouses, lakes, and cloud storage. Data security and privacy address access control, encryption, masking, anonymization, and compliance with regulations such as the GDPR in Europe.

Data management supports analytics, reporting, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency. Common challenges include data silos, inconsistent definitions, scalability, governance across organizational units, and adapting to evolving legal requirements. The field intersects with data engineering, data science, and enterprise architecture, and it is increasingly essential for organizations seeking to turn data into a strategic asset.