It’s not a huge revelation that the world of Cloud computing is rapidly evolving and taking on a wide range of shapes these days.  The as-a-service nomenclature is expanding beyond Cloud-based platforms, infrastructures, and software solutions. It now includes a variety of Web and Data Management technologies that are almost becoming too many to name. For instance, over the past year or so we have witnessed the rise of Database-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions shift an emphasis to NoSQL and other types of structured and non-structured Data Management tools.

It’s possible that the last thing we need is another as-a-service Cloud computing model to define, but just as you may have expected that’s exactly what we have to do. Now, as the world of Big Data seeps into every aspect of enterprise-class Data Management and decision-making, we’re experiencing another wave of Cloud computing models. Enter Big-Data-as-a-Service (BDaaS).

Why Cloud-based Big Data?

At the core of the looming BDaaS revolution is the reality that Big Data is everywhere. According to a recent Gartner report, 42% of all IT leaders have either already invested in Big Data technology, or will be in the very near future. The same report indicates that IT leaders are rapidly moving down the Big Data stream out of necessity. They are highly cognizant of the fact that Big Data does and will reveal business opportunities that are completely overlooked with archaic Data Management and visualization analytics tools.

However, there’s something beyond the simple fact that an increasing number of IT pros are gravitating towards Big Data technology. That is, businesses are increasingly aware of the power of Big Data to inform business decisions. As a result, from the top down organizations are pushing for Big Data-centric infrastructure to help integrate this new technology.

The big idea here is that the enterprise is virtually drowning in data. Without a powerful Cloud-based resource to manage that information, it can quickly verge on becoming unmanageable.

Defining Big-Data-as-a-Service

Understanding this new BDaaS Cloud computing model means having some sort of a grasp on the concept of Big Data itself. If you haven’t been following along, Big Data refers to massive volumes of data in new varieties moving through large-scale organizations in real time, or at least extremely close to real time, depending on the infrastructure. Naturally, at the core of BDaaS is this growing need to offload these Big Data processes to a Cloud-based, third party vendor.

Challenges for a Looming BDaaS Revolution

The key questions for many organizations considering a migration to a BDaaS provider are all related to rapid technological shifts currently taking place in the enterprise. According to Gartner Vice President, Frank Buytendik, business and IT leaders are increasingly worried about their ability to keep up with competitors. This is all due to – from an infrastructure perspective – a lack of preparation for this dramatic technological shift in the IT space.

The good news, according to Buytendik, is that there is no shortage of opportunity to expand and develop resources to meet the needs of this new era of BDaaS Data Management and computing solutions. In fact, despite these seemingly overwhelming challenges, Gartner still believes that Big Data technologies will see major growth in the years ahead. Gartner believes that by 2015, 20% of all global 1000 companies place a high emphasis on “information infrastructure,” or other types of Big Data technologies. Some analysts believe that this is merely setting the stage for BDaaS adoption on a much larger scale.

Five Key Benefits of BDaaS for the Enterprise

Beyond the clear BDaaS implementation challenges facing today’s enterprise organizations, there are hosts of benefits that are influencing IT leaders to move their Big Data management solutions to Cloud-based providers. Let’s take a look at five of these key benefits for the enterprise.

1. Analytical Insights: This is where a lot of key business decision-making really shines. Big Data analytics in the Cloud offer insights that are geared towards improving how organizations respond to complex data sets. In most cases, the Big Data analytics environment gives you some leverage to customize the data you want to analyze. In other words, you can easily process and query information based on very specific search queries related to very specific business processes.
2. Real-time Data Analysis: Perhaps one of the most attractive things about Big Data in the Cloud is the potential to access data in real time, or at least pretty darn close to it. Database indexing and response times are lightning fast, which gives you a great deal of power over a wide range of sophisticated Big Data analysis and processing tasks. The big idea is that your databases refresh in a matter of minutes, which gives you near-real-time results.
3. Data Manageability: One of the major challenges for IT leaders attempting to manage both semi-structured and non-structured databases within an in-house Big Data infrastructure is the sheer volume of data that needs to processed and analyzed. BDaaS solutions are designed to simplify this process. Through the power of index compression, all data is dramatically reduced in size to make the data management process a lot more digestible. This goes a long way to improve accuracy, and keep overall costs down.
4. Flexibility: Open source solutions for managing Big Data applications are becoming more and more prevalent, especially as the BDaaS conversation really starts to take shape. Through integrated open source platforms like Hadoop and Cassandra, you can have greater control over real-time analytics processes.
5. Cost Effectiveness: Finally, one of the most valuable benefits of Big Data in the Cloud is inextricably tied to the overall nature of cloud computing. That is, you’re not locked into proprietary hardware, and by provisioning a host of virtual servers you only pay for what you need, and only as you need it.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the big question facing all industry analysts, experts and IT leaders is if the world is ready for a BDaaS revolution. On one hand, according to Phillip Wik, DBA for RedFlex, BDaaS infrastructure isn’t inherently difficult to execute. It’s all about having the right components in place. Some key elements needed for successful BDaaS implementation include a highly functional service-oriented architecture, cloud virtualization capabilities, Hadoop, as well as a host of Business Intelligence tools that allow for deep and sophisticated data analytics.

RedFlex’s Phillip Wik has concerns beyond the mere mechanics of delivering Cloud-based Big Data solutions. He says there are some ethical concerns as well. The big concern is that having several massive databases gathering and processing data from cameras and sensors in real time could raise some privacy concerns in the big data management space.

The short answer to the question that this article poses is that beyond these ethical questions that are actually incredibly complex and difficult to answer, the world may actually be ready to embrace BDaaS in a meaningful way. It’s clear that the technology is in place, and organizations are, in increasing numbers, adopting Big Data solutions on a large scale. At this point, it’s not a matter of “if” in the BDaaS adoption conversation. It all comes down to timing, and whether or not BDaaS is right for your operational needs.

Dan Bowman of FierceHealthIT reports, “State level governance efforts for storing and exchanging citizen data–including health information–are ‘shaky at best,’ according to Chad Grant, a senior policy analyst with the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. Grant, who spoke at the Government Health IT Conference & Exhibition in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, was touting the results of a collaborative study published this week by NASCIO and HIMSS on the health IT landscape in the states. Overall, 80 percent of responding state CIOs said they had no data governance structure in place at all.

Bowman continues, “‘There are effective point solutions within specific agencies, but managing information as an enterprise asset will require effective data governance,’ the report’s authors wrote. ‘Numerous states shared that they are still in the development phase and that they are looking into a statewide longitudinal data system.’ The study also examined the status of Medicaid eligibility systems and Medicaid Management Information Systems, as well as the role of state CIOs in state level health information exchange (SLHIE) efforts. Overall, 78 percent of responding state CIOs reported that their MMIS efforts would be completed by 2014, while 72 percent of respondents said that their state will be implementing an eligibility system before 2014.”

Read more here.

Sean Gallagher of Ars Technica recently opined, “Most of us are okay with what Google does with its vast supply of ‘big data,’ because we largely benefit from it—though Google does manage to make a good deal of money off of us in the process. But if I were to backspace over Google’s name and replace it with ‘National Security Agency,’ that would leave a bit of a different taste in many people’s mouths. Yet the NSA’s PRISM program and the capture of phone carriers’ call metadata are essentially about the same sort of business: taking massive volumes of data and finding relationships within it without having to manually sort through it, and surfacing ‘exceptions’ that analysts are specifically looking for. The main difference is that with the NSA, finding these exceptions can result in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to dig deeper—and FBI agents knocking at your door.”

He continues, “So what is it, exactly, that the NSA has in its pile of ‘big data,’ and what can they do with it?. Let’s set aside what US law allows the NSA to do for a moment, and focus on some other laws that constrain the intelligence agency: the laws of physics and Moore’s Law, to start with. The NSA has the capability to collect massive amounts of data on traffic over switched phone networks and the Internet and has had that capability for some time, thanks to cooperation from the phone companies themselves, deep packet inspection and packet capture hardware, and other signals monitoring capabilities. But they haven’t had the ability to truly capture and store that data en masse and retain it indefinitely until relatively recently, due in part to work started at Google and Yahoo.”

Read more here.

photo credit: NSA

According to a new article out of the company, “Talend, a global open source software leader, and Loqate, a, leader in international address verification, today announced a partnership to meet the evolving data quality demands of enterprise organizations. Through the partnership, Talend has integrated the Loqate Engine into its data quality solution, Talend Platform for Data Management, allowing worldwide address verification and geocoding capabilities.”

Fabrice Bonan, co-founder and chief technical officer at Talend commented, “Talend’s commitment to our customers is to let them realize the full value of their information assets. Our partnership with Loqate provides a crucial piece of this puzzle: the verification, enrichment and geocoding of addresses that ensure the accuracy and reliability of location data. These added capabilities help our customers increase the efficiency of critical business processes such as logistics or customer acquisition and retention.”

Read more here.

ICF International is looking for a Data Architect/Modeler in Bethesda, MD. According to the post, “This Individual will be responsible for developing and guiding (understanding the big picture) and participating in (hands-on detailed work) architectural work on an enterprise-level program in a fast-paced, Client-oriented environment.  This is a highly visible, key position. This is not an operational DBA position. Manage data in a large enterprise organization. Define and implement data architecture improvement opportunities. Define and enforce best practices for data modeling and database design. Research and prototype new tools and technologies to meet new business requirements. Participate in software design and code reviews. Support resolution of critical technical issues.”

Qualifications for the position include: “10 years in the Information Technology field, with a focus on data architecture. 5 years of broad database knowledge and experience in data modeling, data design and data governance principals. 5 years experience with Oracle Databases, both design and development. Must possess excellent interpersonal, verbal, presentation, and written communication skills. Must be politically astute and able to work successfully with a variety of Stakeholders. Must be a self-starter, and able to work independently with minimal supervision. Must have strong analytical, and problem-solving skills.”

Learn more and apply here.

photo credit: ICF International

From diagnosing medical ailments to fixing cars, people of all ages are looking to the web for a “fast fix.”  Search engines such as Google and Bing have made finding solutions to our problems much easier, quicker, and less costly.  This paradigm shift has given the customer the power of search and the expectation of answers.

Let’s say I‘m having an issue with a particular piece of software.  I could go to the company’s website, find the help desk contact information, call the help desk, wait in a queue, and hopefully get the answers I need.  Or, I could search for an answer myself.  If I take the latter route, I not only learn more about the product itself, but I get the satisfaction of resolving my own issue.

Many companies are deploying strategies to steer customers in this direction, realizing great cost savings and increased efficiencies.  Similar to “call steering,” where telephone customers are prompted for information using the keypad, customers are given commonly requested information, are properly direct elsewhere, or put into direct contact with a representative.

Self-help F.A.Q. sites will prompt users to ask a question, analyze search criteria and offer possible answers or articles related to the search.  An effective F.A.Q. page will entice customers to enter criteria in a search box.  Some sites will start out with a “How Can We Help You?” pop-up, provide a search box on the main F.A.Q. page or even the site’s home page.  These search boxes may contain greyed text that shows customers exactly where to type.  In the example below, the question “What would you like to know?” entices the customer to ask a question and shows them where to type. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “As if we don’t know how to use a search box.”  Remember, just because something is obvious to one person doesn’t mean it’s obvious to all.

The question or information entered by the customer will be compared against all articles in the F.A.Q. database.   Any articles that contain information that match the search criteria will be presented to the customer.  Some sites will go as far as hiding their contact information from customers for a certain amount of time or until the customer actually makes an attempt at searching for the answers to facilitate a “do-it-yourself” mentality.   Some companies will allow a customer to search and then offer a live chat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to ignore the customer.  These tactics are empowering the customer by making them more knowledgeable about the product.

Not every issue will be able to be resolved by this method, but as customers grow more confident with their technical abilities, their confidence to repair day-to-day issues and troubleshoot will grow as well.  If we can feed customer confidence by having a well prepared and welcoming F.A.Q. page, then the trend of the self-sufficient customer will definitely grow, saving your company time and money.

by Angela Guess

In preparation for the upcoming NoSQL Now! Conference in San Jose, take a look back at some of the most memorable moments from last year’s conference. One presentation that stands out from the crowd is Stephen Cole’s talk, Evolving Neo4j for the Cloud. In this presentation Steven, a Project Lead at Adobe Systems, covers the challenges and solutions Adobe faced when adopting Neo4J as their graph solution, moving it out of the data center and into the cloud, how Neo Technology worked with Adobe to overcome hurdles and evolve the product, and what putting a truly global cluster into production entailed.

Steve has been working with online services for a dozen years, starting back when CGI and ASPs reined supreme. Through the years he has worked with different platforms and technologies on projects ranging in scope from community to financial, research to production, back-end to front-end, and operations to engineering. At Adobe Steve’s focus began with SaaS operations in the data center for projects like Photoshop.com, a private cloud compute and storage solution, and his eye is now on services in the public cloud. That leads us to where we are today, utilizing Neo4J to power features within Adobe’s recently launched cloud offerings.

We have announced the keynote speakers for the upcoming NoSQL Now! Conference in San Jose. The article states, “This year’s line-up will include NoSQL heavy hitters including Adrian Cockcroft of Netflix, Max Schireson of 10gen, and Andy Mendelsohn of Oracle. The program will also include technology pioneers Nathan Marz, the creator of Storm, and Peter Olson, digital comic innovator at Marvel Entertainment. NoSQL Now! takes place August 20-22 at the San Jose Convention Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley.”

Tony Shaw, CEO of DATAVERSITY and co-chair of NoSQL Now! commented, “Keynote speakers should provide both thought leadership and industry guidance, and we have both in abundance at this year’s conference. This year will be crucial to the evolution of the marketplace, as incumbent database giants like Oracle start to compete more aggressively with NoSQL market leaders like 10gen. It’s a clear indication that NoSQL databases are here to stay.”

The article goes on, “Kicking off the keynote presentations on Wednesday, August 21st, Andy Mendelsohn of Oracle, will discuss Oracle NoSQL Database and what customers can expect to see from this software giant as the demand for huge, high-performance data continues to expand. Then Nathan Marz, recently at Twitter and the creator of the real-time computation engine Storm, will talk about real-time computation. Marz was the lead engineer at BackType before being acquired by Twitter in 2011, where he started the streaming compute team which provides and develops shared infrastructure to support many critical realtime applications throughout the company.”

Learn more here.

A recent article out of the companies reports, “Concurrent, Inc., the enterprise Big Data application platform company, today announced that Hortonworks has certified its Cascading application framework against the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP). The certification ensures that enterprises can take advantage of Concurrent’s Cascading application framework and HDP to ease Hadoop Big Data application development and bring machine-learning applications to the masses.”

It continues, “Together, with the simplicity and flexibility of Cascading and the reliability and stability of the HDP, companies can rapidly build, test and deploy new data transformation and refinement, data processing, analytics and machine-learning applications. Enterprises can now leverage existing skill sets, core competencies and product investments by carrying them over to HDP via the standards-based technology — Java, ANSI SQL and machine-learning standards. Analysts and data scientists familiar with these can now easily run predictive data models at scale and integrate ETL, data preparation and predictive analytics in the same application, greatly reducing time to production and unlocking access to large Hadoop data sets.”

Read more here.

photo credit: Hortonworks

A new article out of IBM reports that the company yesterday “unveiled an extensive array of cloud solutions designed for the C-suite to help executives accelerate innovation around customer experience to meet their business objectives in concert with their company’s IT strategy. Among the newest cloud business offerings is a Big Data and social analytics solution that chief marketing officers (CMOs) can use to get an emotional reading on how customers view their brand.”

The article continues, “Cloud computing is quickly becoming essential to C-suite executives. While technology decisions have been made historically by CIOs and IT department heads, the C-suite is adopting cloud computing because they see its ability to transform their front office processes — marketing, procurement, supplier management, human resources and legal. In fact, industry analysts estimate that by 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs.”

Paul Papas, Global Leader Smarter Commerce, IBM Global Business Services commented, “The cloud opportunity is helping C-suite leaders reshape customer experience… As part of IBM’s digital front office strategy, we see these 100 cloud applications as a way for business leaders to improve customer experience, reach new customers, generate new revenue streams and become more competitive in their industry.”

Read more here.

photo credit: IBM