CaRD Workspace for Azure

After an archiving project or a decommissioning, the data sits somewhere in a storage account, and whoever knows the Azure portal answers the questions. That is cumbersome, hard to trace and requires permissions far beyond what answering a question should need.

The CaRD Workspace for Azure puts a front end directly onto the storage — no connector, no SAP and no second copy of the data. Containers and folders can be navigated, every object shows its metadata and index tags, and individual files can be downloaded.

Writing is not provided

There is no function to upload, change or delete — not switched off, simply not built. For evidential purposes that is the precondition: whoever answers a question should not be able to touch the estate.

Facets instead of guesswork

An index run reads the metadata and tags of the estate into a database of its own and determines which fields actually occur. From that come filters that match the real estate — rather than a search screen full of fields nobody ever populated. The storage itself stays unchanged.

What not everyone should see

Containers and groups of objects can be hidden. Hidden items are still counted so it stays visible that something is missing; a direct request for a hidden object is refused and names the rule that applied.

Know in advance what is in there

A read-only survey tool ships with the product and records the estate up front: containers, object counts and the metadata fields actually populated. After that it is clear which facets make sense and how much setup is needed — before anything is set up.

This tool is new in the catalogue as well; we accompany the first roll-outs personally.