Why Data Portability Matters Now More Than Ever

Imagine you’re a MedTech company in a rapid growth phase (congratulations), and you’ve been using a lightweight enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform — but since your company is expanding, you’ve decided to migrate to a bigger one.

But when you start trying to move your data, your old vendor informs you that while your data is technically available for export, it’s stored in a format that isn’t directly compatible with your new system.

Now, you need to hire consultants to convert the data. On top of that, key metadata (like employee certifications, performance reviews, and compliance history) doesn’t transfer cleanly, meaning your team has to manually re-enter those records. 

Your rapid growth phase has become more of a… protracted tarpit era.

If you don’t address data portability (how transferable data is between systems), you’ll join the 80% of companies Gartner estimates are coping with cloud vendor lock-in right now. Let that sink in. 80% of companies want to do something with their own data, whether that’s moving it or transforming it or auditing it, and they can’t because their own vendor is getting in the way.

Your data might not be your data anymore

The problem isn’t always formatting. Sometimes, the problem is batch size limits, costs, or access to support services. 

Sometimes, the problem is that “your” data isn’t your data.  

Back in 2018, industry analyst Michael Kanellos shared a story in a blog post for the International Society of Automation (ISA):

“A year ago an acquaintance was excitedly telling me about his company’s new business plan at a mixer at the IoT World Conference. The company — a worldwide contract manufacturer — was going to become a data broker. The company would retain rights to the data generated by equipment it produced. It would then use this data to analyze and improve products or anonymize it and sell it to third parties. Right about then, another acquaintance from a brand-name manufacturer sidled up. ‘Like hell you will,’ the brand-name manufacturer bellowed. ‘You work for me. It’s my data.'”

If Kanellos thought the fight over data ownership was bad back then, I wonder how he feels today. AI is transforming data ownership — literally.

If a company’s proprietary AI models are “enriching” your raw data, the output might not be your data anymore. 

Imagine you’re that MedTech company from before again. What if your old ERP platform had been combining sales data with predictive analytics? Maybe you’d been using it to identify buying patterns or forecast sales cycles.

That enriched data is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a proprietary asset. If you decide to switch vendors, the AI-generated insights might not easily come with you.

“But the sales pitch said no vendor lock-in…”

The reality of “no vendor lock-in” is not the marketing copy or the snappy-looking slide deck.

The reality is usually an unhelpful rep telling you that your data will be permanently deleted in two days if you don’t figure out how to export it on your own.

Before you give any vendor your data, make sure you have an exit strategy and a plan to maximize data portability. 

• Check if the vendor allows you to export data in standard, non-proprietary formats (e.g., CSV, JSON, or XML) that are easily transferable to other systems.

• What data is off limits if you do decide to migrate (e.g., logs, dashboard settings, or “enriched” data)?

• Do they provide you with tools to help export your data? What happens if those fail? Do they provide you with any other kind of support? Clarify how much time you have to export your data after giving the vendor notice. 

• Does your vendor retain a copy of your data? It might sound outrageous, but some organizations, like the one Michael Kanellos’ acquaintance worked for, anonymize data for resell. 

At Onymos, we don’t lock you in. I know, I know. I said not to trust marketing copy, but this is the one exception to the rule because, in this case, there are no caveats, no asterisks, and no qualifiers. You won’t ever have to export your data from the Onymos Cloud because there is no Onymos Cloud. We deploy inside your infrastructure, whether that’s in the cloud or on-prem. 

Our award-winning “no-data” software architecture was designed so that Onymos sees no data and saves no data. It not only avoids lock-in but also eliminates the threat of vendor compromise, so your data is more secure.

If you need to digitally transform and want to maximize data ownership and control, reach out to our team to learn more.