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ZERO-COPY INTEGRATION

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"How can we accelerate and scale the delivery of new digital solutions AND improve data protection?"

- Every CXO, everywhere

GLOBALIZED DATA REQUIRES UNIVERSAL CONTROL

Zero-Copy Integration is a national standard for delivering digital transformation projects from a foundation of meaningful
data ownership and
collaboration-based innovation.

The Data Collaboration Alliance is a member of the Technical Committee at the Digital Governance Council which developed the ZCI framework for the Standards Council of Canada

MILESTONES / TIMELINE

Second half 2023 - Internationalization

February 21, 2023 - Information Session (watch above ☝ or via 
YouTube)

February 15, 2023 -
'Zero-copy' applications published by DCA

February 08, 2023 - Published by Digital Governance Council (Press release)

December 15, 2022 - Approved by Standards Council of Canada

June-Nov 2022 - Public consultation period

Feb 2021 - May 2022 - Technical Committee development

CORE PRINCIPLES

Zero-Copy Integration standard

Decouple data from apps
(shared architectures, not silos)

Zero-Copy Integration standard

Establish data products, federate governance

Zero-Copy Integration standard

Prioritize active metadata over complex code

Zero-Copy Integration standard

Access-based collaboration,
not copy-based integration

Zero-Copy Integration standard

Set access controls at metadata-layer, not app code

Zero-Copy Integration standard

Prioritize composability over monolithic solutions

ZCI IN THE NEWS

STRATEGIC NEED: FASTER INNOVATION

Current approaches to digital innovation that necessitate the creation of data silos and copy-based data integration represent a significant drain on problem-solving capacity.

 

It's an ever-increasing tax on innovation.

 

In contrast, the proposed standard for Zero-Copy Integration outlines a framework for developing new digital solutions where people and systems collaborate on data within a copy-less environment.

 

In the Zero-Copy Integration framework, the only barrier to digital innovation being granted access to data from its rightful owner - the shared data architecture eliminates the overhead of requesting access from IT teams, standing up new databases, and performing copy-based data integration. 

STRATEGIC NEED: DATA PROTECTION

The traditional approach to data sharing is a complex and risky process where information is copied between data silos (apps, databases, data warehouses, data lakes, spreadsheets etc) generally via ETL or API-based data integration.

 

This has the following impact on data protection:

 

  • Consistent enforcement of access controls is extremely difficult, if not impossible​

  • Correction and deletion of data is extremely difficult, if not impossible​

  • Precision auditing of data usage is extremely difficult, if not impossible

  • Porting data from one environment to another is extremely difficult​

 

For organizations large and small, these issues present significant challenges for compliance with increasingly strict trade agreements and data protection regulations.​

In the Zero-Copy Integration framework, the elimination of silos and copies enables access controls to be set once in a shared data architecture at at the metadata-layer and then universally-enforced across all digital solutions, greatly simplifying lineage, compliance, and auditability.

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