## 6 Conclusions  
Currently, data are boldly pithily referred to as the oil of the 21 st century. On a metaphorical level, this statement is quite accurate, as the IoT and the resulting large-scale systematic collection of data not only enabled the fourth industrial revolution but also marked a major evolutionary step in the information age as it led to the digitization of society. Data-driven services significantly shape our everyday lives. Even on a less figurative level, there are similarities between oil and data when it comes to their handling. Both commodities first have to be discovered and extracted, then refined, and finally delivered to consumers. A closer look, however, reveals inherent differences between the intangible commodity 'data' and a tangible commodity such as oil, which must be addressed when processing them. Therefore, the goal of this work was to elaborate a modern data administration strategy that takes into account the strategic and economic importance of this special commodity. To this end, we made three contributions:  
1. Our investigation of the commodity 'data' revealed that ten unique characteristics have to be taken into account when handling this intangible resource. For instance, data are not only nonconsumable but can also be duplicated losslessly, which means that their volume is constantly growing. Furthermore, data accumulate at high velocity and have to be processed quickly, as they are partially volatile. Their heterogeneous nature and the need to apply individual refinement techniques to the data further complicate this endeavor. Since the economic value of data cannot be estimated in advance, and indiscernibly data manipulations can impair the quality of the data, it is essential to avoid unreasonably high handling costs. Finally, data products can be subject to special restrictions in terms of processing and provisioning. Therefore, there is a fundamental need for new trading concepts and infrastructures for the commodity 'data'. 2. Based on this knowledge base, our review of state-of-the-art techniques related to data administration indicated that there are four aspects in particular where these characteristics need to be taken into account in order to enable effective and efficient data handling. First, data have to be acquired appropriately (in terms of, e.g., quality and quantity) from heterogeneous sources. These data must then be cleansed and made processable by means of data preparation and transformed into custom-made data products. The data products, together with all the high-volume data artifacts generated during manufacturing, must be managed and made retrievable. Only then can they be offered to data consumers in a digital storefront as part of data provisioning. In addition to these data administration tasks, security and privacy aspects also have to be taken into account in each of these work steps. 3. Our review of related work revealed that there are many island solutions to individual aspects of these data administration problems. However, there is no holistic end-to-end solution addressing all data characteristics at once. This is necessary in order to achieve synergy effects and thus exploit the full potential of the commodity 'data'. To this end, we presented our own concept toward a reliable information retrieval and delivery platform called REFINERY Platform. Our REFINERY Platform not only addresses all the challenges we identified in the area of data administration but also provides both data producers and data consumers with assertions regarding data security and privacy on the one hand and data quality on the other hand. An in-depth assessment confirms that our approach is effective (in terms of provided functionality), practicable (in terms of operability), and efficient (in terms of data throughput) in this respect.