NetApp Data Classification
NetApp Data Classification gives you actionable insights into your data to maintain compliance, optimize storage, accelerate data migrations, and prepare data for GenAI and retrieval augmented generation (RAG).
In today's digital age, data is the lifeblood of any organization. But as data volumes explode and environments become more complex, how can you ensure that your data is not just managed, but harnessed for its full potential? Enter NetApp Data Classification—your partner in transforming data chaos into data clarity.
Data Classification, a core capability within NetApp Data Services, is a robust data governance service that provides comprehensive visibility for managing data across your NetApp footprint more effectively.
Data Classification automatically maps your data, determining how much data exists, where it's located, and the types and categories of the data. This enables you to make intelligent decisions on your data in real time and take action to optimize storage, accelerate data migrations and prepare your data for GenAI and RAG—reducing risk and costs.
Using advanced AI, NetApp Data Classification simplifies data governance, giving you actionable insights to address data privacy, security and compliance requirements.
Features and Benefits
The capabilities that set NetApp Data Classification apart.
Quickly uncover compliance and security risks
Data discovery and classification
Data Classification goes much further than traditional pattern matching. Data Classification uses AI, machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP) technologies to categorize and classify the data by sensitivity and compliance type, while highlighting potential security and/or compliance risks.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
To ensure accuracy, Data Classification uses proximity validation to validate its findings. Validation works by looking for one or more predefined keywords near the personal data that was found. For example, Data Classification identifies an Australian Tax File Number (TFN) as a TFN only if it finds a proximity phrase next to it, for example, "TFN" or "Tax File."
Sensitive personal data
Key Benefits
Govern all of your NetApp data
- Map, classify, and categorize your data for visibility and control.
- Perform data hygiene tasks holistically across your hybrid NetApp data estate.
Optimize storage and reduce costs
- Archive stale data.
- Identify and remove duplicate data.
Accelerate data migration projects
- Map data for migration.
- Identify sensitive data before moving to the cloud.
Maintain regulatory compliance
- Map personally identifiable information (PII).
- Comply with privacy regulations, including GDPR, CCPA, PCI, HIPAA.
- Respond quickly to Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs).
Prepare data for GenAI and RAG
- Find and remove irrelevant or stale data that can distort results.
- Identify and delete duplicate data to enhance training efficiency and prevent the model from assigning undue importance to it.
- Identify PII and sensitive PII to avoid inadvertent use in training sets and results.
Get actionable reports
Actionable compliance reports
- The Privacy Risk Assessment report: Provides an overview of your organization's data privacy risk status to support privacy regulations such as GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
- The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) report: Helps identify credit card information within your data.
- The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) report: Helps identify files containing health information.
- The Service Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR) report: Helps comply with GDPR and similar data privacy regulations by finding files that have that person's name or identifier in it.
Thrive with expert-led storage guidance
Get tailored advice on how NetApp Data Classification fits your environment — from sizing and deployment to long-term optimization.
Technical Specifications
Exhaustive hardware and software metrics extracted directly from official documentation.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI)Used to categorize and classify data by sensitivity and compliance type
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Machine Learning (ML)Used to categorize and classify data by sensitivity and compliance type
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Natural Language Processing (NLP)Distinguishes context (e.g., "George is Mexican" vs. "George is eating Mexican food")
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Proximity ValidationValidates findings by looking for predefined keywords near personal data
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Personally Identifiable Information (PII)Automatic identification
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Credit card numbersAutomatic identification
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Social security numbersAutomatic identification
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Bank account numbersAutomatic identification
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Australian Tax File Number (TFN)Identified via proximity phrases such as "TFN" or "Tax File"
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Sensitive personal dataIdentifies special types as defined by GDPR articles 9 and 10 (e.g., health, ethnic origin, sexual orientation)
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Privacy Risk Assessment reportOverview of organization's data privacy risk status to support GDPR and CCPA
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PCI DSS reportHelps identify credit card information within your data
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HIPAA reportHelps identify files containing health information
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Service Data Subject Access Requests (DSAR) reportHelps comply with GDPR and similar data privacy regulations
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Supported RegulationsGDPR, CCPA, PCI, HIPAA
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Service categoryCore capability within NetApp Data Services
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CoverageNetApp data estate / hybrid NetApp footprint
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Document IDSB-4068-1025
Learn more
Explore resources
Datasheets, whitepapers, case studies, and technical documentation.
Explore resourcesCommon questions about NetApp Data Classification & Governance
Answers to what enterprise IT leaders ask most before deploying NetApp Data Classification & Governance with SANDataWorks.