“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 […]
Prescriptive Analytics Use Cases
The term “prescriptive analytics” denotes the use of many different disciplines such as AI, mathematics, analytics, or simulations to advise the user whether to act, and what course of action to take. In that sense, prescriptive analytics offers an advisory function regarding the future, rather than simply “predicting” what is about to happen. This newer […]
Embracing Data Silos: Semantic Search and Analytics Innovation
Walk around any large organization and hear people groan about finding the right data to do their work. In the typical organization, data sits in multiple places, lost behind technical and functional boundaries. These isolated systems, referred to as “data silos,” have often existed for good purposes and reasons such as helping each business function […]
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Protection
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning techniques are altering the way organizations gather, process, and protect data. They are being used to gather massive amounts of information about internet users in the form of Big Data, and to secure and protect it. The challenge is how to maximize the use of Big Data, while simultaneously safeguarding […]
Handling Complex Data Storage with Blockchain and the Cloud
Blockchain technology, a distributed and secure database system, has been making significant advances since it first started gaining popularity a few years ago. It started out in the cryptocurrency world, but is also finding considerable usage in banking and finance, as well as asset settlement. But, can blockchain also be used for other use cases […]
Fundamentals of Data Stewardship: Frameworks and Responsibilities
If organizations must have Data Stewardship, but struggle with deploying valuable Data Stewardship programs, how can companies mitigate the challenges and get better results faster? The Art of War, by the Chinese military general Sun Tzu, provides insight. He advised, “strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise […]
In-Memory Database Architecture: An Overview
In-memory databases work faster than databases with disk storage. This is because they use “internal” optimization algorithms, which are simpler and faster, and this type of system requires fewer CPU instructions than a disk storage system. Additionally, accessing data that has been stored “in-memory” eliminates the need for seek time while searching for data. As […]
Get Ready for DataOps
An emerging discipline called DataOps is taking a page out of the DevOps playbook. The latter is all about accelerating the time to software delivery, and the former about accelerating data flow. And just as DevOps replaces the waterfall method of software delivery, DataOps replaces the waterfall approach of delivering data to the data consumer. […]
The State of Data Science: Expertise Shortage Creates a Need for Innovation
The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil but data. As a result, the skills required to convert data into insights that generate revenues are in high demand. Unfortunately, one of the biggest hurdles companies face when trying to capitalize on their data sets is a lack of data scientists and machine learning practitioners. […]
Next Generation Business Intelligence: Customer-Driven Success
In the customer-driven era, business success depends on how quickly a business can respond to a customer demand. The more that businesses become reliant on real-time outcomes, the more they will seek next-generation (next-gen) BI deployments. Traditional Business Intelligence (BI) platforms were high-cost and time-intensive applications. The current trend in BI is to move toward […]