Embodiments for a system and method of selecting data protection policies for a new system, by collecting user, policy, and asset metadata for a plurality of other users storing data dictated by one or more protection policies. The collected metadata is anonymized with respect to personal identifying information, and is stored in an anonymized analytics database. The system receives specific user, policy and asset metadata for the new system from a specific user, and matches the received specific user metadata to the collected metadata to identify an optimum protection policy of the one or more protection policies based on the assets and protection requirements of the new system. The new system is then configured with the identified optimum protection policy as an initial configuration.

Aspects include receiving a notification that a value of a data element stored in a source storage location in a source format has been changed to an updated value. The change is replicated to a plurality of target storage locations. The replicating includes, for each of the plurality of target storage locations, determining a target format of the data element in the target storage location. The target format is one of a plurality of different formats, including the source format. Each of the different formats provide a different level of data protection for the data element. In response to determining that the target format is not the same as the source format, the updated value of the data element is converted into the target format, and the updated value of the data element is stored in the target format at the target storage location.