“When you’ve got a mass of data, how do you analyze that data and get to a point where you can get the gemstones, the diamonds out of it?” Mike Young, Chief Information Officer with Centrica, knows what it’s like to wade through a sea of petabytes and terabytes to find value. Centrica is an […]
The Data Warehouse, the Data Lake, and the Future of Analytics
Data lakes were created in response to the need for Big Data analytics that has been largely unmet by data warehousing. The pendulum swing toward data lake technology provides some remarkable new capabilities, but can be problematic if the swing goes too far in the other direction. Far from being at the end of this […]
Enterprise Analytics Trends
Evan Terry, Chief Analytics Officer at Velocity Mortgage Capital said that enterprise analytics technology is increasingly sophisticated, due to machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and streaming analytics, but you can’t benefit from these advancements without a solid foundation. “There’s a real interplay there between the foundational and the advanced.” Terry discussed these interplays during his […]
Redefining Success with Agile Data Governance
Laura Madsen wants to challenge your outdated ideas about Data Governance. “I’m pretty sure that we wouldn’t use software that we used 20 years ago, but we’re still using Data Governance and Data Governance methodologies the same way we did 20 years ago.” And although she advocates for Agile, she’s not an Agile coach or […]
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning Explained
The first reference to artificial intelligence was in a paper written by Alan Turing in 1950, entitled Computing Machinery and Intelligence, where he asked the question, “Can machines think?” Turing’s article, as well as a 1977 paper entitled History of Artificial Intelligence by P. McCorduck are recommended reading for those wanting a greater understanding of […]
Data Architecture: One Size Does Not Fit All
There has never been a time when more options were available to stand up a process-driven and/or platform-driven Data Architecture. In recent years, some companies find themselves with an embarrassment of riches, having every tool known to humankind. Using tools à la carte, with a different tool for each solution, works for some organizations. Other […]
Tools for Quick Wins with Data Architecture and Data Governance
Data Governance can have various definitions, depending on the audience. To many, Data Governance consists of committee meetings and stewardship roles. To others, it focuses on technical Data Management and controls. Holistic Data Governance combines both of these aspects, and a robust Data Architecture and associated diagrams can be the “glue” that binds business and […]
Case Study: Indiana University, Data Virtualization, and The Decision Support Initiative
“We can throw business intelligence tools at problems and we can have really smart technicians write code but if it’s not serving the needs of the business and actually answering questions that people need to know, then ultimately, our work is futile,” said Dan Young, Chief Data Architect at Indiana University (IU). Young said that […]
Case Study: Cox Automotive Solves Data Drift and ETL Challenges
According to Pat Patterson, Community Champion at StreamSets, “data drift” is such a problem now that “only about one fifth of a data analyst’s time is actually spent analyzing the data.” The remainder is spent “wrangling it into shape and getting it from where it is to the actual analysis platform.” Speaking at the Enterprise […]
ETL vs. Data Preparation
Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) technologies, managed exclusively by IT, have until recently been the primary tool used to combine data from multiple sources and thus provide the ability to drive important business decision making for organizations. But, with the advent of self-service data preparation, business users and subject matter experts (SMEs) can find those […]