by Angela Guess
Edd Dumbill has written an article for O’Reilly Strata discussing Big Data as the digital nervous system of an enterprise. He writes, “Until a few years ago, the main function of computer systems in society, and business in particular, was as a digital support system… The now-quaint phrase ‘paperless office’ alludes to this transfer of pre-existing paper processes into the computer. These computer systems formed a digital exoskeleton, supporting a business in the real world. The arrival of the Internet and web has added a new dimension, bringing in an era of entirely digital business. Customer interaction, payments and often product delivery can exist entirely within computer systems. Data doesn’t just stay inside the exoskeleton any more, but is a key element in the operation. We’re in an era where business and society are acquiring a digital nervous system.”
He goes on, “As my sketch [above] shows, an organization with a digital nervous system is characterized by a large number of inflows and outflows of data, a high level of networking, both internally and externally, increased data flow, and consequent complexity. This transition is why big data is important. Techniques developed to deal with interlinked, heterogenous data acquired by massive web companies will be our main tools as the rest of us transition to digital-native operation. We see early examples of this, from catching fraud in financial transactions, to debugging and improving the hiring process in HR: and almost everybody already pays attention to the massive flow of social network information concerning them.”
photo credit: Edd Dumbill
