Your Utility Data Isn't Missing, It's Being Held Hostage (And How to Take It Back)

Stop paying ransom for data you already own. Here’s how water utilities are reclaiming control through smart data governance.

Water utilities are losing access to critical operational data after vendor contracts end. Learn how to implement data governance, build internal databases, and leverage analytics tools to maintain ownership and control of your utility’s most valuable asset.

Has this ever happened to you? You just had a great project deployment, the vendor gives a great job with exactly what you needed. Things went great for years until the contract ended and you never gave it a second thought. Then one day you went back to grab some data, and it was all gone?

You email the vendor asking for a copy of their data, they give you the runaround, they admit they don’t have it handy, or even worse the data is there but it’s locked behind an outrageous data collection and retrieval fee! It can feel like your data that you already paid for is being held hostage until you pay up to get it!

The Hidden Cost of Vendor Dependence

Utilities today are making a choice, whether they realize it or not. They are now in an age of digitalization and are either taking steps towards or away from control of their data. This means the focus for utilities is changing. They are moving away from individual software or function management into data or enterprise management.

Two Approaches to Utility Data Management

Historical Approach	Data Driven Approach
We contract out our water model as part of the master planning contract. We trust them to look at all the model components, set it up correct, and make the engineering recommendations	We own our own water model and send data to firms for master planning. When they find issues, they work with us to update the underlying data, so their engineering recommendations are more accurate.
We have all our plant controls under contract with a SCADA provider. It works well and whenever there are new instruments, we just call them and they handle it.	We do all our own SCADA maintenance and minor adjustments but contract out major projects and integrations
We value GIS so we contracted out a firm to take all our record drawings and host our GIS system on a website we can access.	We control all the GIS data and self-host. We contract out major data additions and updates but self-manage the data quality and maintenance.
Our pipeline conditions programs we just contract out every 5 years we mostly accept their recommendations and don’t use the underlying data.	We have our own asset management database and use contractors to inspect assets and provide us with the data. We then use that data with multiple programs and engineers so they can make the best recommendations for pipeline or facility replacements.

Why Data Ownership Matters Now More Than Ever

Much of this is because water utilities are increasingly recognizing the value of data-driven decision-making. By taking more ownership of their data in house, they can set up utility owned and managed databases and analytics. Very commonly a utility will want to do an initial internal data review or evaluation to see what they really need to invest time and resources into.

This empowers utility staff at all levels to access, analyze, and interpret data without needing advanced technical skills. This democratization of data can lead to more informed decisions, improved operational efficiency, and better service delivery.

The Two-Component Foundation: Database + Analytics

Getting started doesn’t require a massive IT overhaul. You need two fundamental components:

A Utility-Controlled Database

This can be self-hosted internally, cloud-hosted through providers like AWS or Azure, or managed by a specialized utility software vendor, as long as you maintain primary owner access and control.

Cost Reality: A cloud-hosted SQL database with 1 TB of storage typically runs $150-300 monthly. For context, that’s enough capacity for 50,000 sensors collecting 15-minute interval data plus 1,000 sensors at 15-second intervals, for an entire year.

Many utilities already have IT departments familiar with this infrastructure or know where to start. The barrier isn’t technical complexity, it’s recognizing the strategic importance.

A Business Intelligence (BI) Analytics Tool

This is your data visualization and analysis layer. BI tools integrate multiple data sources, enabling you to answer questions like: “How does water meter flow correlate with SCADA pressure sensor data?” or “Which pump stations show efficiency degradation patterns?”

Modern BI platforms offer intuitive drag-and-drop interfaces, customizable dashboards, and the ability to democratize data access across your organization.

Cost Reality: Microsoft Power BI licenses run approximately $10 per user monthly. For 10 full-access users, expect around $100 monthly, likely less with existing Microsoft agreements. Alternatives like Tableau, Looker, or Qlik are also viable.

The real investment isn’t licensing fees, it’s the talent and hours required for initial setup, dashboard development, and staff training. But this is a one-time investment that pays dividends for years.

The Hybrid Alternative: Specialized Utility Solutions

Not every utility needs to build everything from scratch. A hybrid approach combines database infrastructure with specialized analytics through vendors like Xylem, Autodesk, Bentley, or ESRI.

When This Makes Sense:

Smaller utilities with limited IT resources
Specialized applications like digital twins or real-time hydraulic modeling
Focused initiatives around water loss, sewer overflows, or energy optimization

These providers understand water-specific challenges and offer pre-built analytics for common utility problems. The trade-off? Costs often rival another full-time employee, and data portability between systems can be challenging.

Generic tools like Power BI are data-agnostic, they’ll work with any data source. Specialized utility platforms know your domain but may create data silos if not carefully managed.

Five Questions Every Vendor Contract Must Answer

When looking at vendors and resources ask a few questions including:

Where does the data live and who can access it?
Can we automate a data dump or connection to a utility owned database?
What is the quality of the data and what reporting will be provided with it?
If things don’t go well, what does an exit from the contract look like data wise?
If things go well, what does an expansion of the contract looks like data wise?

Start Simple: Your First Use Case

It’s best to start with a direct use case and a simple structure. Find a specific use or need in your utility such as monitoring water loss, sewer overflows, or something else when live modeling isn’t as needed but it’s mostly focused on what happened based on existing data sources. This is a tentative data architecture for a water management database and analytics.

Building a Data-Driven Culture

Technology is only half the equation. Successful utilities also:

Define clear data ownership roles: Who’s responsible for data quality in each domain?
Establish data governance policies: How is data validated, updated, and archived?
Invest in staff training: Not just on tools, but on analytical thinking
Foster cross-department collaboration: Break down silos between operations, engineering, and IT
Celebrate data-driven wins: Recognize teams that use data to solve problems

The goal isn’t to eliminate vendors, it’s to change the nature of the relationship from dependence to partnership.

Make Decisions Based on Data Governance, Not Software Features

It’s tempting to choose technology based on flashy dashboards or impressive demos. Resist this impulse.

Instead, make decisions based on:

Data ownership and portability
Long-term governance and control
Interoperability with other systems
Total cost of ownership (not just subscription fees)
Staff capability development

The right technology should enhance your team’s capabilities while maintaining your institutional knowledge and operational independence.

Your Path Forward: Evaluate → Design → Implement → Maintain

At Infrasync, we work with utilities taking a methodical approach to data transformation:

Evaluate: Assess current data landscape, identify gaps, define business objectives

Design: Architect data flows, select appropriate technologies, establish governance frameworks

Implement: Build infrastructure, develop dashboards, train staff, migrate data

Maintain: Monitor performance, refine analytics, expand capabilities, ensure data quality

We’re vendor-agnostic, we receive no referral fees or incentives from technology providers. Our recommendations are based solely on what serves your utility’s long-term interests.

Whether you’re just beginning to think about data ownership or ready to implement a comprehensive data strategy, the most important step is recognizing that your data is an asset worth protecting.

Ready to take control of your utility data? Explore Infrasync’s Technology Services There is a longer breakdown on our website here, just scroll down a bit to see the approach

Quick Take: For a utility with 50,000 sensors collecting data at 15-minute intervals (4 columns of data) and 1,000 sensors collecting data at 15-second intervals (10 columns of data), the total estimated data generated over a month would be approximately 137.3 GB. This calculation assumes each data point is stored as a 64-byte value. This can be hosted for $100-200 with many cloud database providers. This may sound like a lot of sensors but keep in mind the water meters themselves create 80-90% of that data volume.

Know a utility leader struggling with vendor data lock-in? Forward this newsletter, they’ll thank you.

Your Utility Data Isn’t Missing, It’s Being Held Hostage (And How to Take It Back)