VENDORiQ: Microsoft Launches New Purview Information Protection Capabilities

The Latest

15 November 2022: At Microsoft Ignite 2022, the company announced feature changes to Purview, adding new capabilities to existing capabilities that were previously purchased separately, or via different packages. Purview now focuses mainly on the areas of data management, including data classification, labelling and protection of sensitive information. However, the package also includes aspects of information management, such as auto-classification (auto-labelling), digital authentication, credential types discovery, encrypted files co-authoring, and improved file type support.  

Why it’s Important

Microsoft launched Azure Purview in 2020 to replace the Azure Data Catalog (ADC) which was very limited in terms of data protection compliance. At the Microsoft Ignite 2022 event, it has repackaged the tool as one of the six product lines that support on-premises, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and multi-Cloud environments. Microsoft’s strategy looks to be one of moving its data and information (document) compliance products into a single solution.

In the advisor paper, ‘Microsoft 365: How Microsoft’s Evolving Strategy Impacts You’, IBRS pointed out that Microsoft’s products are often fragmented with respect to governance. Microsoft Purview now features granular policy management to reduce unauthorised access. The company also endorses its integration with Sentinel (for security information and event management) and Defender (for anti-malware capabilities) to control most types of security threats using unified governance. 

Microsoft Purview is still considered a fairly new solution in the industry for risk management, data governance, and policy compliance. New users can be intimidated by the steep learning curve that it requires to get used to the tools in the solution. 

As Microsoft unveils more products to cater to user issues and requests, this is a step towards a more holistic solution with regard to systems of records of truth.

Who’s Impacted

• CEO
• Procurement teams
• IT teams

What’s Next?

• Appoint a key person who can evaluate through high-level scrutiny on how the enterprise can best optimise the features of Microsoft Purview. This individual must understand the pros and cons of the technology and its maximum potential. In particular, they should be able to differentiate between data management and information (or knowledge) management. While Purview is relatively advanced in terms of its data management, its information management features have a way to go yet to solve the challenges of disruptive collaboration and manage in-place approaches.
• Introduce a minimal set of security assessment steps into the current development process to begin familiarisation.

Related IBRS Advisory

1.Microsoft Teams Collaboration Part 1: Enterprise Security Considerations