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 […]
Fundamentals of Self-Service Business Intelligence
It’s clear that there is considerable recent market movement towards self-service business intelligence (SSBI) in the numerous vendor offerings available. There is also a growing concern among the Data Science community that ordinary business users may misunderstand or misinterpret the available data, leading to incorrect results. Experienced data scientists have a tremendous ability to analyze, […]
What Is Data Preparation?
Data preparation describes the process of getting data ready for use in analytics. In the past, data preparation was a time-consuming task handled by the IT team, involving “data extraction, transformation and loading (ETL), access to data warehouses and data marts, and lots of complicated massaging and manipulation of data across other data sources,” says […]
Metadata Management and Analytics: What is the Intersection?
Metadata Management implies a set of activities, which administer data for better usage and outcomes. Thus, this practice involves establishing stringent roles, responsibilities, policies, and processes to ensure that data-driven information is available, accessible, sharable, and maintainable across an organization for the best analysis and application of such information in daily business. In that sense, Metadata […]
Improving Data Pipelines with DataOps
Click to learn more about author Joe DosSantos. It was only a few years ago that BI and data experts excitedly claimed that petabytes of unstructured data could be brought under control with data pipelines and orderly, efficient data warehouses. But as big data continued to grow and the amount of stored information increased every […]
Data Preparation Need Not Be Cumbersome or Time Consuming
Click to learn more about author Kartik Patel. Data drives decisions and, in today’s competitive business environment, the kind of fact-based decisions achieved through advanced analytics are mandatory. These data-driven decisions ensure that a business does not make a misstep or have to guess at forecasts, plans, and the root cause of problems. But, with […]
Case Study: Polaris Puts Data Analysis in the Service of Defeating Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is believed to be the third-largest criminal activity in the world, according to the FBI. The Department of Homeland Security advises that industries around the world including agriculture, hospitality, restaurant, and domestic work, as well as prostitution, often take advantage of modern slavery. Those pulled into this underworld are often held in isolation […]
What Is Augmented Data Preparation and Why Is It Important?
Click to learn more about author Kartik Patel. The average business user does not have a full grasp of advanced data discovery or data preparation methods, and most organizations would not want business users to waste precious time trying to navigate the complexities of a manual data preparation process. If a business provides a solid foundation for self-serve business intelligence […]
What Is Data Discovery?
Data discovery describes processes in understanding data sets on hand for data integration and/or data analysis. This step occurs in design and should combine technical search from tools with subject matter expertise, from people. During data discovery, a high-level view is taken in assessing data preparation, or data quality needs. Data discovery can be broken […]
Why Rich Discovery and Analysis Can Make or Break Your Unstructured Data Migration Plan
Click to learn more about author Brian Murphy. Unstructured data is growing faster than ever. In fact, according to prevailing research from most analyst firms, it is growing significantly faster than structured data. According to IDC, 80 percent of worldwide data will be unstructured by 2025. And, at the same time that the sheer volume […]