2022 in Review: What Were the Top 5 Data Management Trends?

In January of 2022, I wrote a blog about five data management trends to watch in 2022. It’s now 2023 —  time to see what happened with these trends.

Trend #1: Multicloud and intercloud data management

Trend #2: AI for data management automation

Trend #3: Data fabric architectures

Trend #4: Multidomain master data management

Trend #5: Data marketplaces

Trend #1 Multicloud and intercloud data management 

Multicloud and the need for intercloud data management was a big trend. One proof point is the $9 billion dollar cloud contract the United States Pentagon split between AWS, Google, Oracle and Microsoft in December 2022.

What I missed and expect to see more of in 2023 is the use of the term “super cloud.” This describes an architecture designed to enable management of workloads and data across clouds, as well as secure, compliant data sharing.

Trend #2 AI for data management automation 

In 2022, Forbes, Information Week and MIT Sloan Management Review published articles about how AI can dramatically improve both data management productivity and the value companies obtain from their data.¹ It’s a clear sign of a strong market trend when a topic makes the leap from analyst reports to industry media.

At Informatica, 2022 saw us continue to enhance our CLAIRE AI engine to support data management automation and the market evolution toward autonomous data management.

Trend #3 Data fabric architecture 

Data fabric was overshadowed by data mesh in 2022. You can see in this screenshot from Google Trends that while data fabric and mesh were relatively equal through 2021, data mesh pulled away in 2022. And based on the conversations I’m seeing on LinkedIn, data mesh has won the battle for mindshare.

Trend #4 Multidomain master data management 

In 2022, all of the industry analysts covering master data management (MDM) that I spoke with reported an increase in the volume of inquiries regarding multidomain MDM. They also noted a significant increase in inquiries regarding mastering finance and supplier domains. 

In an Informatica-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, respondents from large companies in APJ ranked finance as the most important domain.² They also reported a 360-degree view of the business as the primary objective for MDM. This entails a 360-degree view of all domains and the relationships between them.   

Trend #5 Data marketplaces 

Another trend in 2022: Data marketplaces. Organizations worked to empower data sharing and democratization, but they weren’t as big a trend as I thought they would be. This is particularly surprising, given how the functionality of data marketplaces can support the data mesh principles of data as a product and provide self-service access. 

Looking ahead to what’s next

This year, I will be watching to see whether “super cloud” continues to gain traction, how data mesh evolves and whether data marketplaces become part of the data mesh conversation. I’m also looking forward to the upcoming release of Informatica’s new chief data officer study and the insights it will reveal about market trends. 

Join us at the CDO Data Strategy Forum, where we’ll discuss the key priorities for the coming year as identified by top-performing data leaders in the study.

^{1 MITSloan Management Review, “How AI is Improving Data Management,” Thomas H. Davenport and Thomas C. Redman, December 20, 2022. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-ai-is-improving-data-management/}

^{2 Base: 203 CX and MDM influencers and decision makers of large companies in APJ}

^{Source: CX and MDM Thought Leadership Project for Informatica, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Informatica, September 2022}