In today's paradigm there are inherent challenges associated with managing information.

• Information has limited shelf life. As organizations move toward understanding and managing data assets and begin the evolution of creating highly usable information, it becomes obvious that information has a limited shelf life. Left unmanaged, information decays, content loses its context, meaning is lost as metadata remains unenforced, and unstructured data cannot be located.

• Data and information are managed in silos. Data is characterized and stored differently, and there are different standards for various types. Different instrumentations and integration methodologies are used based on type and utility. Disparate metadata is applied.

Digital data is doubling at an unprecedented rate. The escalated demand for information and the exponential growth in data volumes is challenged by the increase in types and complexity of disparate data that need to be managed – structured, semi-structured and unstructured. Falling storage costs compound the issue by continuing to drive the appetite for higher data volumes and data stores.

Everyone needs information. The increase in knowledge workers throughout organizations means that more people are seeking access to more data than ever before. The need to present data in intelligible forms to workers lacking specialized data extraction skills has never been greater.