www.insightssuccess.com November 2017
The way of business solutions
THE
10
EXPERT’S COLUMN
BEST
HADOOP
SOLUTION PROVIDER C O M PA N I E S 2 0 1 7
The Power of Predictive Insights
Industry Forecast Hadoop Market will upsurge to $54.2 billion in the near future
Tech-Talk Trajectory of Hadoop's Future and its Effects on the Industry
IRI Voracity An Insatiable Appetite for Data
Editorial
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n the time period 2012 to 2014, Hadoop started taking over the market of Big Data, when the industry was already marked by wave of mergers, acquisitions and financial rounds with high level valuations. The scenario looks entirely different today. The industry experts say that Hadoop is the only cost-sensible and scalable open source alternative to the other commercially available Big Data management packages. The technology is now an integral part of almost any commercially available Big Data solution and also the de-facto industry standard for business intelligence (BI). Even though the usability and essentiality of this technology is incomparable, Hadoop has failed to deliver enough in terms of revues by the year 2015. The industry reports suggest that during the duration of three years from 2012 to 2015, venture capital, acquisition money and R&D budgets were playing the leading roles in the growth and development of the technology. The industry saw some extraordinary Hadoop trends like rapid shift from batch processing to online processing, emergence of MapReduce alternatives like Spark, Storm and DataTorrent.
An underrated technology with the capability to change the world
Like any other technology, Hadoop has been through obvious setbacks but it seems that the technology is here to stay and grow with the rapid advancements in the near future. The foreseers of the industry say that there will be commercially supported Hadooprelated software, hardware and appliances helping enterprises in consulting, integration, middleware and support as well as in training and outsourcing. Not only in the sphere of Information Technology and business world, Hadoop is one such technology which is redefining terms even in the healthcare industry. An independent research and survey has revealed that the technology has played an active role in reducing cost overhead, curing diseases, improving profits, predicting epidemics and enhancing the quality of human life by preventing deaths. This technology is now being adopted in the scientific research labs, hospitals and other medical institutions to reduce healthcare costs by changing the models of treatment. Even the technology was not making sufficient profits in the industry for a long time, there apparently seems no reason to underrate or underestimate its capabilities. Ever since its invention, Hadoop has been redefining terms in the technological world and helping businesses improve. It clearly seems that the technology is nothing without the contribution of Hadoop solution providers. With time, people will surely understand the capabilities of the technology and its advancements will surely bring a change in the world for good.
Rajarshi Chatterjee
Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Senior Editor Ariana Lawrence Managing Editor Rajarshi Chatterjee Co-Editors Ashwini Deshmukh Nikita Doiphode Stephanie Andrews Mary D’Souza Visualiser David King Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Alex Noel Picture Editor Shweta Ambilwade Art Editor Vijaykumar Dudhbhate Business Development Manager Mark Harris Marketing Manager Chris Business Development Executive Judy Kent John, Brian Research Analyst Jennifer Circulation Manager Robert Database Management Steve Technology Consultant Swapnil Patil sales@insightssuccess.com
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COVER STORY
08 IRI Voracity
An Insatiable Appetite for Data
Industry Forecast
Tech-Talk
Editor’s Pick Big Data Analytics Key To Business Growth
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
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ARTICLE
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CONTENTS
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PSSC labs: Delivering Hand-Crafted HPC & Extraordinary Big Data Computing Solutions
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THE 10 BEST
HADOOP
Serving Technology to Help Clients’ Improve Businesses
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he history of Hadoop goes back to the early 21st Century. Hadoop was invented by the famous advocate and creator Doug Cutting, he also invented Apache Lucene and Apache Nutch, In the mid 21st century when the technology started getting into the veins of the world of information technology, more and more companies started adopting the technology to improve their services. In the year 2008, Yahoo! announced that its production search index was being generated by a 10,000-core Hadoop cluster. In the same year, the technology was made its own top-level project at Apache which further confirmed its success and also its diverse and active community. Interestingly, again, in the same year, Hadoop created a milestone in the technology sector by breaking all world records to become the fastest system to sort a terabyte of data. Hadoop is one such technology which is now getting adopted by businesses all over the globe and is helping enterprises leveraging their growth. To showcase the companies which are enriching the industry with extraordinary technology, we have come up with the issue on “The 10 Best Hadoop Solution Provider Companies 2017.” On the cover of this edition, we have, “IRI Voracity: An Insatiable Appetite for Data”. IRI is a leading big data software and solutions provider with both tools and a platform that address the data processing, protection, and provisioning needs of enterprises large and small. It is a data management ISV founded in 1978, serving as a centralized data marshaling area and one-stop solution stack for data discovery, integration, migration, governance, and analytics. IRI touts Voracity as the “only affordable, high-speed platform for managing data in flat files, DBs, HDFS, and cloud apps, from profiling to presentation.” Along with this interesting Cover Story, we have enlisted some of the major contributors of the field, one of that is, “PSSC Labs: Delivering Hand-Crafted HPC & Extraordinary Big Data Computing Solutions”. To expand the potentials and show how businesses can benefit with the Hadoop technology, PSSC Labs comes into the scenario with over 25 years of experience in delivering solutions ensuring relentless performance with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership. The company has set an exceptional record by offering companies custom-built options outside of expensive proprietary designs offered by larger solution providers ─an option once only considered variable─ for enterprises with massive infrastructure needs. To add an interesting angle to the edition, we have come up with some knowledge enriching articles from the experts of the industry like “The Power of Predictive Insights” by Steven Ramirez, CEO at Beyond the Arc, Inc. Along with such amazing pieces to read about Hadoop, we have also covered some of the amazing articles crafted by our in-house editors as Trajectory of Hadoop’s Future and its Effects on the Industry and Hadoop Market will upsurge to $54.2 billion in the near future: Industry Forecast, among many others.
Hope this issue will leave a mark on your mind and will enrich your knowledge about Hadoop technology.
Cover Story
THE 10 BEST
HADOOP
SOLUTION PROVIDER COMPANIES 2017
David Friedland COO
RI
Voracit An Insatiable Appetite for Data
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Voracity is designed to support the full scope of data-driven work in a familiar place … a single pane of glass where users can nd, process, govern, and analyze their data, plus manage their jobs and metadata
data analysts, ETL architects and governance teams can
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Voracity’s seamless interchangeability of engines means that leverage the same Eclipse pane-of-glass to design and run jobs. There’s no need to learn Hadoop code
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n the era of big data, two of the biggest challenges that IT professionals face are: 1) speeding insight from variable data sizes, formats, and streams, and 2) securing personally identifying information (PII) to protect corporate reputations and to comply with data privacy laws. Some try to address the performance challenge by powering legacy data integration or virtualization suites with huge servers. Others try complex Hadoop programs or unfamiliar database technologies. For data security, they turn to costly classification and de-identification technologies, and specialized compliance experts. Many continue to seek out proven solutions they can afford. IRI (Innovative Routines International, Inc.), is a data management ISV founded in 1978 focused on fast, featurerich processing and protection technology for data big and small. According to IRI’s SVP and COO David Friedland, the company’s early roots were in moving mainframe sort/merge/report jobs into CP/M, DOS, UNIX, and Windows. This initial mission led IRI to develop and parallelize more data mapping functions, which also made its “CoSort” product popular with DW and BI architects needing a faster ETL and data preparation engine. As IRI grew in big data processing markets (long before Hadoop emerged), it developed even more data-centric capabilities for profiling, processing, protection, presentation, and prototyping, including: data searching and classification, data integration and replication, data masking and encryption, data cleansing and reporting, and test data generation. Today, IRI delivers eight (8) data management and protection software products, which are supported in more than 40 international offices.
Big Data Manipulation in a Managed Environment CoSort is the default data processing engine in IRI’s modern “total data management” platform, Voracity. The platform can also use Hadoop engines too, but more on that later. The purpose of Voracity is to be a centralized data marshalling area and one-stop solution stack for data discovery, integration, migration, governance, and analytics. IRI touts Voracity as the “only affordable, highspeed platform for managing data in flat files, DBs, HDFS, and cloud apps, from profiling to presentation.” Voracity uses a popular (and free) graphical integrated development environment (IDE) called IRI Workbench. Because it is built on Eclipse, the GUI for Voracity is automatically familiar to millions of users, and is a fully extensible solution stack. Many free and commercial plugins can open in Voracity’s user workspaces and run within Voracity workflows. Using these flexible Eclipse “workspaces,” different stakeholders can work alone or in teams to profile and classify, integrate and harmonize, clean and mask, prototype or replicate, and blend or analyze their data, as well as track its changes through time. More specifically, Voracity performs multiple functions within five key data management areas: • Data Discovery -- search, extract, structure, profile, classify, and diagram data sets • Data Integration -- extract, transform, load (ETL), change data capture, pivoting, etc. • Data Migration -- data type, file format, endian, and database conversion or replication • Data Governance -- cleansing, masking, test data, master data and metadata management
static and streaming data -- from files, DBs, IoT, and more -- without Apacheproject complexity or mega-vendor costs. Development Background IRI had been building toward Voracity long before realizing it. But once dedicated to the platform, IRI began to combine its existing products with other state-of-the-art technologies. • Analytics -- embedded reporting, BIRT and dashboard integration, or data wrangling This diagram provides a view of how data flows through typical work sequences:
“Voracity’s seamless interchangeability of engines means that data analysts, ETL architects and
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With Voracity, you don't need a PhD to use it, a fat purse to buy it, or large team to support it
Years of internal and external innovation later, Voracity is now more than the sum of its parts. For example, the platform added searching, profiling, and classification wizards to discover data ahead of analytic, quality, and masking operations.
Fast Data Munging and Masking (With or Without Hadoop) Many data stores are now in Hadoop Distributed File Systems (HDFS), and the cost of cluster hardware continues to fall. As a result, there’s an increasing need to process and protect data in HDFS files, Hive, etc. With this comes the challenge of a steep learning curve for Hadoop users.
governance teams can leverage the same Eclipse pane-of-glass to design and run jobs. There’s no need to learn Hadoop code.”
Voracity also supports newer data delivery methods like Kafka and formats like JSON along with old school COBOL files and relational databases. It combines IRI’s proprietary engines with open source communication and parsing protocols to address all the challenges of big data today: volume, variety, velocity, veracity, and value.
IRI addresses these issues in the platform. The data transformation, masking, and reformatting jobs built visually for CoSort can also run automatically in Hadoop MapReduce 2, Spark, Spark Stream, Storm, or Tez.
IRI sees the convergence of Hadoop commoditization and Voracity task consolidation as the perfect opportunity for smaller and mid-sized companies to capitalize on big data. IRI says that Voracity can manage both
A key design goal was also accessibility. IRI built Voracity to be user-friendly for a wide range of groups, including BI/DW architects, data scientists, DBAs, and GRC (governance, risk, and compliance)
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fficers. Another goal was to future-proof it against change. The versatility of Voracity’s programs and constant evolution in Eclipse functionality make the platform a chameleon for multiple tasks today, and future data processing requirements tomorrow.
Building Partnerships to Build Business IRI routinely collaborates with specialty providers who contribute to the Voracity ecosystem. By blending into the IRI data fabric in Eclipse, these developers can add their value to the platform with minimal user impact.
Many thought leaders in the data management industry contributed to Voracity, guiding it during its development and positioning stages to make sure it hit its mark. Analysts at Gartner, consultants at Athena Solutions, Big Data Dimension, and the Data Governance Institute all weighed in on the platform, as did the inventors of AnalytiX DS Mapping Manager and the Data Vault (Dan Linstedt). All of them ensured that Voracity became a flexible, outcomedriven platform.
To illustrate, IRI recently announced a partnership with AnalytiX DS to enhance Voracity’s metadata management capabilities for ETL and data quality users. The companies unveiled their complementary functions in adjacent exhibits at the Dataversity Enterprise Data World conference and expo in Atlanta this year.
Customer Adoption Although IRI continues to expand, it already has many multinational customers. Banks and insurance companies like Bank of America, AIG, HSBC, and AXA process their data with Voracity’s CoSort engine, as do airlines like American, Japan, and Lufthansa, and automotive companies like Hyundai, Nissan, and Mercedes-Benz. Hosts of other conglomerates like Visa, Nestle, Samsung, Capgemini, Accenture, Rolex, Sony, and The Walt Disney Company also rely on IRI’s data manipulation technology. “We are proud to have thousands of users worldwide using IRI software in contexts like data integration and data masking, which leading publications and analysts firms like Gartner, IDC, and The Bloor Group all recognize,” David remarked.
While talking about the partnership, David said, “Both companies are excited about bringing the combined technologies to market under a single, integrated offering.” He commented on the benefits that their clients will be getting and said, “The bridge between our platforms is built on an API-level integration of metadata. This enables anyone with either stack to use the strengths of the other on a pay-to-play basis.” Staying Ahead of the Data Management Industry IRI attributes its technical success to: 1) an organicallygrown code base focused on big data processing speed; 2) simple and open metadata; 3) the extensibility of Voracity’s Eclipse design/deployment GUI; and, 4) input from industry thought leaders. IRI also credits its success to conservative growth, relatively-low marketing overhead, and the priority given to its most loyal users in feature-function decisions, support resources, and licensing flexibility.
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Voracity is a total data management solution stack that bends ETL mega-vendor cost curves, eliminates Apache project risks
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multi-tool complexity, and mitigates
Moving into its next 40 years, IRI sees Voracity as a key to the growth of the company and the industry. IRI continually ranks among the data management industry’s top firms. Database Trends and Applications (DBTA) ranked the tools in IRI's Data Protector Suite -- also key components of Voracity -- as a Trend Setting Product in 2017. CV Magazine named Voracity the Most Price-Performant Big Data Management Platform. Still Active Founders Paul Friedland, CEO, started the company in 1978. Paul’s innovation in high-performance, high-volume data processing began even earlier when he was cited in Knuth’s Sorting and Searching. Through decades of continuing innovation in co-routine architecture, multi-threading, data manipulation, and task consolidation, he made IRI a leader in the big data processing industry long before Hadoop was introduced. His son, David Friedland, COO, joined IRI in 1998 after working in technology marketing and international journalism. Today, he manages both partner and product line growth, works with analysts and stakeholders, blogs on technical topics, and speaks at trade conferences.
David said, “Despite the rich technical history I’ve seen at IRI, the years ahead bode even better. We are in the middle of exponential data growth. Voracity’s myriad solutions in data governance and analytic-related applications coupled with its price-performance position in Hadoop-fueled markets bring us new opportunities every day.” While discussing the future of the company, he added “I see us leveraging partner technologies for NLP, machine learning, and rich visualizations as a way to add even more value to the Voracity platform going forward.”
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This combination of factors allow IRI to deliver enterpriseclass performance and functionality at affordable subscription prices.
Voracity is designed to support the full scope of data-related work in a familiar place to govern data, metadata, and users
THE 10 BEST
HADOOP
SOLUTION PROVIDER COMPANIES 2017
Company Name
Management
Brief
Agilisium Consulting agilisium.com
Raj Babu CEO
Agilisium consulting is a digital system integrator with global delivery capabilities.
Apptium Technologies apptium.com
Rick Kapani Founder & CEO
Apptium Technologies is an innovative technology partner to leading service providers in the Telecom, Media, Entertainment and High Tech industries.
BlueTalon bluetalon.com
Eric W. Tilenius CEO
BlueTalon is a leading provider of data-centric security for nextgen data platforms.
Cardinality cardinality.co.uk
Steve Bowker CEO & Co-founder
Cardinality provide “Data with Attitude” using innovative advancd real-time analytics to dramatically improve Operational Efficienc using Automation and improved Business Processes creating superior Customer Experience.
IRI, The CoSort Company iri.com
Paul Friedland President & CEO
IRI is a big data software and solutions provider with both tools and a platform that address the data processing, protection, and provisioning needs of enterprises large and small.
Noodle Analytics noodle.ai
Stephen Pratt CEO
Noodle.ai is the world’s most sophisticated Enterprise AI system to manage complex business operations.
Pentaho pentaho.com
Rod Squires VP sales
Pentaho is a Unified Data Integration and Analytics Platform under Hitachi Vantara.
PSSC Labs pssclabs.com
Alex Lesser CSO
PSSC Labs is a renowned Hadoop Solution Provider, delivering handcrafted HPC and Big Data computing solutions ensuring relentless performance with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership.
Semantix semantix.com.br
Leonardo Santos CEO
Semantix is the largest company focused on Big Data in Brazil, founded in 2010 with the mission to build the new Digital Era.
Zettaset zettaset.com
Jim Vogt CEO
Zettaset is a technology solution provider offering highperformance data encryption and security in the cloud or onpremises that’s easy to deploy.
THE 10 BEST
HADOOP
SOLUTION PROVIDER COMPANIES 2017
PSSC Labs:
Delivering Hand-Crafted HPC & Extraordinary Big Data Computing Solutions
I
nnovation and evolution are the two other names of technology and change is the other name for improvement. Every innovation begins with experimentation and ends with adoption, unless it leads to destruction. Experts say that in the long term, there will be greater adoption of Hadoop as an enterprise solution. The ecosystem of Hadoop is constantly evolving and while observing its history of development, one can state that this technology have just begun to hit its stride and has much more potential in terms of progress and adoption than it has expressed so far. With the continued disruption in the traditional storage and analytics platforms, companies are finding in difficult to maintain the status-quo older system which is becoming too costly to maintain and is ultimately leading to the rise of Hadoop technology, which experts consider as the ideal low cost, expandable and flexible enterprise solution. To expand the potentials and show how businesses can benefit with the Hadoop technology, PSSC Labs comes into the scenario with over 25 years of experience in delivering hand-crafted HPC and Big Data computing solutions ensuring relentless performance with the absolute lowest total cost of ownership. The company has set an exceptional record by offering companies custom-built options outside of expensive proprietary designs offered by larger solution providers ─an option once only considered variable─ for enterprises with massive infrastructure needs. With missions to disrupt the status quo and deliver enterprise solutions to the most demanding industries, PSSC Labs is offering the lowest cost of ownership via
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unique, customized solutions that deliver high performance, high density, flexibility and scalability while reducing overall footprint and power usage. This extraordinary service of PSSC labs has not only satisfied hundreds of small to mid-sized business to deliver the best in US manufactured servers and clusters, it has made a mark on the minds of some of the most well-known organizations in the world including NASA, Harvard University, MIT University, Shutterstock and U.S. Defense Forces. PSSC Labs is also known an Intel Premiere Partner as well as an Intel Data Center Specialist. “I interviewed six companies. PSSC Labs was the most honest and sensitive in addressing our needs. They did not try to push unnecessary technology or products on us, but tried to best address our needs and wants,” asserts Robert Yelle, Harvard University Research Scientist. About the Man Redefining Company and Leading the Industry During the early ‘90s, Alex Lesser, Chief Strategy Officer at PSSC Labs, joined the company to redefine everything in the industry and help clients achieve their desired goals. More than 25 years ago, PSSC Labs was founded by his parents, Janice and Larry Lesser and was a family business, but everything changed and started rolling towards better way since Alex started defining strategies for the company. He worked hard to move the industry away from selling expensive proprietary technology of a few mass providers and instead focused on developing commodity based, open source solutions that incorporate inventive design, custom notification, and the latest hardware to produce those.
November 2017 |
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Alex is a man of excellence with his academic background from University of California, Los Angeles, and more than two decades of work experience in the industry. Under his guidance, the company not only provides the industry with better solutions but allows PSSC Labs to maintain its commitment towards producing and servicing its products 100 percent in the USA. Offering Customized Solutions for Better Results While trying to break the mold of traditional infrastructure or over-reliance on cloud-based set ups, PSSC Labs is redefining things and building up new empires of business technology. The company currently focuses on working with its customers to provide solutions that not only stays within their operating budget but also maximizes speed, density and energy savings. The company designs each Hadoop solution while keeping in mind the specific business needs of its clients and ensures that their solutions are more flexible, reliable, scalable and at the same time, it offers a lower total lifetime cost of ownership than any other solution on the market.
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Alex Lesser Chief Strategy Ofcer
It is our ability to customize Hadoop solutions of our customers, ensuring they are not upsold on hardware they don’t need while still delivering the best product within their budget
enterprises to evaluate their long term plans and get them to consider Hadoop as a viable solution, convincing them of the lower footprint and lower energy cost, as well as performance benefits that Hadoop can offer,” says PSSC Labs. Besides the known benefits of Hadoop technology, one key aspect of PSSC Lab’s success is their ability to customize Hadoop solutions of their customers, ensuring that they are not upsold on hardware they don’t need while still delivering the best product within their budget. The company is always developing themselves and seeking ways to deliver better service for the benefit of their client's business. PSSC Labs is innovating and bringing new products and technology to enterprises that is expected to maximize value while lowering the total cost of ownership of the products for lifetime. While staying at the forefront of the computing technology 1960, PSSC Labs is dedicated to fulfill its commitment to provide the best US based engineering support.
Winning over Challenges to Walk Towards Success PSSC Labs considers that their name is among the known vendors in the industry which is dominated by big names like HP or Dell. “The challenge is constantly working to get our name out there and convince decision makers to think about the infrastructure in a manner they might not have considered. PSSC Labs must constantly work with
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Specialist’s Viewpoint
Can Analytics Change the Way
COMPANIES
Collaborate and Consume
TECHNOLOGY? C
an we honestly say that our professional day starts with a morning clearly with intentions as to what we should be doing, how we should be working, whom we should be working with and when should we get things done by? There is an option for all of us that is Analytics. Now, can Analytics combined with smartlyenabled collaboration tools make a difference in how we choose to spend our time?
Top teams and organizations make decisions every day on how best to achieve their goals, but do we have all of the information required to make the right decisions at the right moment? Will Big data, predictive modeling with connected devices that provide real-time insight be the next new trend to change the way we work? But to while it comes to save time, I honestly do not think we have mastered the art of collaboration because we still seem to be working harder and not smarter. It seems as though the technology we use works us, more than we work
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the technology. Why is it that we still find ourselves completing work task the same way we did back in history? In our personal lives, we definitely have new levels of multitasking and time runs by, but in business have we really gained the most with our utmost precious valued commodity called time? We exist in a time where information is accessible at the tap of a button. With the rise of new gadgets, apps on our iPhone and portable devices comes the influx of new “techies.” But, why then we are still stuck with unproductive tasks which no more than a waste of time? In today’s world, we have Instant Messaging at our workstations and even video endpoints to connect us with anyone in the world. Still, we find people spend 50% of their time in the wasteful, ineffec-tual and uninspiring meetings, ruining their fifteen to twenty hours a week. With all the advancements in technology, can’t this ill-favored corporate pastime be executed better?
November 2017 |
Stephanie Carhee President
Technology Collaboration and Consumption The goal has always been to collaborate better. Access to basic information across multiple data sources coupled just in time could enable us to have insights on who we should invite to the meeting, selection of collaboration tools that yield the fastest results and meeting spaces that will generate the best outcome and highest output of participation from key team members during collaboration. For this new level of collaboration to be the most effective should the information come before you book the meeting or afterwards. At UC Interlink, we think about everyday how to enable IT services engine to yield recommendations with the right outcome, when you’re ready to consume it and way before it turns into another wasteful meeting. With the right data sources and business intelligence, the
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options are prescriptive and predictive, and limitless. Imagine improving your time to market for a new product launch, having absolute focus and team alignment, via tracking behaviors of the team, while getting recommended efďŹ ciencies to keep the team working at its best. With this platform of intelligence, the Business Leaders can target key performance metrics that enable them to devise strategies, because if you are in such a place, then results matter, gaining time matters and the behaviors of the workforce matter. Regardless of the industry or application, incorporating the use of data and analytics provides the organization the ability to move from a defensive to an
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offensive posture. Currently, we are working on algorithms that can think and recognize patterns, predictions and choices based on the collective knowledge.
optimize how you do things and empower the best people to deliver their best work. Here are some Collaboration Strategy best practices
Amazon’s Model The list of technology giants that have figured out how to solve the problem of what is best to consume when you need it is a short list with one name at the top of it; Amazon. Amazon, attributes 40% of its revenue to recommendations the e-commerce giant makes to its customers, based on their search histories and previous purchases. For example, last week when I wanted to add lighting to my walk-in closet, I searched Amazon, not only did my Amazon search, locate the best reviewed product, it also recommended the right size Amazon batteries. This is a simple idea, but has limitless potential that can be applied to how users can consume valued IT resources within the enterprise. Let’s examine how this concept can be used to optimize IT service delivery. By tracking and mapping work patterns, preferences, daily activities, past beha-viors, technology usages, connected devices and networked systems; we can recommend the right tool based on the role of the worker, key performance goals, and business outcomes or even based on defined user experience strategy. This is what I call the Internet of Things (IoT) personified. Companies have to think about how they want to spend their time and investments in software applications. Purchasing collaboration software tools in isolation is not a silver bullet, but when combined with technology adoption expertise, user analytics and smartly-enabled devices and software, the possibilities are endless. At their core, big data solutions are designed to provide the right information, to the right person, at the right time.
• Have intention behind every software tool, work station and conference room than can be enabled by your cloud and network capabilities • Understand how all of your dipartite software collaboration tools and devices can be seamlessly connected to each other. • Let the user experience drive your technology decisions and not the other way around. • Understand the behaviors of every user within your workforce to identify what is working well and what can be improved to obtain a workforce transformation. • Don’t set out on this journey using only instinct to answer tough questions; rather let the data drive your decisions coupled with experts that know your environment and how to interpret the data to achieve your key goals. • Use the Internet of Things (IoT) as a strategy to tie unlikely data sources together to make better decision and improvements in the way you work. • Devise a game plan based on your company’s trends, and vulnerabilities (not obvious by the naked eye) to enable your teams to work smarter and be better prepared than the competition. • Hold your technology partners accountable to not selling you another technology service or product, rather “incentify” them to deliver an outcome that you can track and measure. Collaboration at Its Best This kind of business insight will change the game, reduce loss of revenue and take technology investments in collaboration software tools to new levels of value. Let’s face it, our top assets are the people with whom we work.
The Road to Business Analytic Adoption Services My personal advice to companies is to stop wasting time and resources, stop making the same mistakes and actually challenge your technology partners to think differently about the outcomes you want. This can be achieved by creating and defining a Collaboration Strategy that will
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In the end, technologies are designed to help you work better and get things done in time or we should say save your time and compete to win!
November 2017 |
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
An
Opportunities in the INDUSTRY
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November 2017 |
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n this era of changing technologies, the Big Data domain has evolved in a very short period of time. It plays the most pivotal role across all industries. The ability of Big Data to mine critical data has radically altered the dynamics of the way businesses function, drive sales, and attract customers. It has become an essential component of business strategy nowadays. A business tastes success by uncovering insights locked inside data. The overlaying trends will examine the evolving ways enterprises can realize better business value with Big Data and how improving business intelligence can help transform organizational processes and the customer experience. There is a demand for better data management from most of the business executives for compliance and increased conďŹ dence to steer the business. It will help them in more rapid adoption of Big Data and innovative and transformative data analytic technologies. Insight-driven Organizations
products and services. An insight-driven approach will facilitate an evolved customer experience, competitiveness, advanced security and operational efďŹ ciency.
In this present year, businesses will move beyond just data handling to leveraging the insights that Big Data uncovers. As understanding, managing, and manipulating Big Data has now become fairly ubiquitous, most of the companies have the ability to deal with it. Mining data will be the center of attraction and it will help effectively to meet organizational requirements and for precise targeting of
Analytics across the enterprise
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Cyber security Applications Today, everyone is dependent on the digital technology and our dependence has reached an unprecedented level. Cyberattacks have also become much more prevalent. An increased occurrence of ransomware has been registered across the globe and cyber criminals are now targeting personal data and devices. Concerning the prime industry, cyber security can only be possible through big data analytics which will become a major area of investment and will grow swiftly. It is necessary for the enterprises and the government agencies to upgrade their security systems to next-generation software which can address ultra-modern security threats.
It can be said that the analytics will not remain isolated to a few departments like marketing and risk management. On the other hand it will infuse the entire enterprise. To understand the dynamics of business operations, data analytics will be utilized and will also reveal ways and
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means to increase efficiency. Hence to derive overall business strategy, insights from multiple departments will be integrated and redundant processes will be eliminated. It will also help the departments to increase efficiency, growth, and productivity. Bridging the talent gap If the demand expands further, the talent gap in data analytics will soar. It is expected that organizations and academic institutions will collaborate closely to generate skills and talent to meet the demand for data engineers. The functions of all corporate employees will be expected to understand, appreciate and work with analytics since it emerges as one of the key instruments in every organization. The academic institutions are also looking forward to put together degree programs in data science. IoT and People There will be a transition from Internet of Things (IoT) to Internet of People (IoP). Interactions, predictive analytics around human behavior, and other subjective areas will grow and start to filter all industry verticals. For example, hospitals will increasingly deploy machine learning techniques to predict the likelihood of the relapse of a disease. This will enable them to work out a patient’s readmission precisely at the time of the initial discharge. Business-science collaboration Businesses will have to learn and deploy traditional, scientific techniques of pattern-matching and artificial intelligence for analytics use cases. For example, techniques to analyze gene sequences in DNA are being used in text-matching algorithms to process bulk emails. It is expected to see very close collaboration between data scientists and the scientific community. For example, image processing is widely used in ‘tagging’ in social media, while voice recognition is used in apps. Technology There will be brisk moving in the organizations from on-premise platforms to cloud and hybrid environments. Around 44 percent of applications used by Fortune 500 organizations are already on the cloud, and more than 50 percent of IT applications will move to the cloud by the end of the year. There will be a rise in demand for analytics tools that are simple, flexible, and capable of handling a variety of data sources. Hadoop enables to store an extremely large volume of data at a significantly lower price point and hence it will continue to become increasingly popular. The share of unstructured data in the data warehouse will continue to increase, which will further cause for Hadoop. Hadoop, now, is past the business relevance and scalability assessment phase and its adoption is expected to accelerate strongly. We are advancing towards a completely new era in the domain of analytics. Big data is disruptive and it has paved the way for pioneering ideas and innovative techniques across industry verticals. It is now driving the stream of disruption and expanding the scope of opportunities for previously untouched market segments. Organizations need to leverage Big Data analytics to its full capacity so as to thrive in this competitive world.
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November 2017 |
Expert’s Column
Steven Ramirez CEO
Beyond the Arc, Inc
About
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e Au or
November 2017 |
The Power of Predictive Insights W
ith access to more data than ever, we now have the tools to harness it to optimize strategy. From acquiring new customer relationships, to tailored messaging, to increased customer retention, predictive insights help businesses make data-driven decisions. What is predictive analytics? What if you could use data like a secret superpower to help you predict future outcomes, tap into the minds of customers, and as a result, make your customers happy? Armed with big data and predictive analytics, you can connect with customers in a whole new way and, in turn, maximize profit. How does this look? One part of the equation is using the data to answer key business questions: What is the lifetime value of a customer that made a purchase for the first time today? Are there hidden factors that impact cost and margins? How do we reduce churn and retain the most valuable customers?
Where does all the data come from? It can be pulled from more sources than you think, and the data you add will give you important insights into the customer experience. | November 2017
Interactions – email and chat transcripts, call center notes, web click-streams, and in-person dialogues Attitudes – opinions, preferences, needs, and desires gathered through survey results and social media Descriptions – attributes, characteristics, self-declared information, addresses and other location information, and demographics Existing business data – transactions, purchases, phone logs, store visits, web page visits, mobile interactions, response to past promotions, lifetime value, tenure with the company, payment history, and usage history Predictive insights in action How are companies applying predictive analytics to increase business value? Improving retention with enhanced customer service based on behavioral segmentation. A large mobile service provider wanted to reduce attrition by targeting which customers were likely to cancel service soon, so they could take preemptive action to retain their business. By developing predictive models based on specific behaviors for different people, they were able to craft offers that would likely appeal to certain segments. They fed this information
into the call center, so service reps could provide specific offers to highrisk segments to improve customer satisfaction. Reducing employee turnover and hiring for success using predictive insights. A leading financial institution used advanced analytics to increase the long-term effectiveness of hiring choices. By analyzing patterns in their HR data, they were able to identify which skills, experience, and behaviors were predictive of success on the job for frontline employees. They could use a similar approach to reduce employee attrition, finding solutions by analyzing a broad scope of data including hiring information, Voice of the Employee feedback, intranet browsing patterns, and more. While traditional business intelligence reports on what’s happened in the past, predictive analytics gives you the power to create business impact on an individual level, and to do that for millions of individuals. By mining and analyzing all your available big data, you can develop reliable, repeatable models for predicting outcomes and drive more profitable decision-making.
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Industry Forecast
Hadoop Market will upsurge to $54.2 billion in the near future: Industry Forecast
A
ccording to Industry forecast, the Global Hadoop Marketplace is poised to grow at a CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) of around 42.7 percent over the next decade and is expected to reach nearly $54.2 billion by 2025. Better cost efficiency and faster processing of large quantities of data compared to conventional data processing solutions such as RDBMS are two of the most encouraging factors boosting the global adoption of Hadoop. Other major drivers of the market include the exponential rise of unstructured data volumes, the increased demand for big data analytics, and major collaboration and investment taking place in Hadoop industry. Below is the list of some of those critical factors which will contribute in the up-surging of Hadoop market in the near future & also the concern related to the future growth of Hadoop. Growing Demand for Big data analytics Tools: The market for data analytics is growing significantly, owing to the increasing adoption of Hadoop big data and BI solutions by the organizations to manage exponentially generated data each day. Increasing demand for costeffective and faster analytics solutions to convert mammoth
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information collected by big data and IoT (Internet of Things) into actionable decisions is one of the most substantial factors driving the evolution of this big data analytics market. Big data analytics tools have the potential to derive meaningful insights and hidden patterns, which could help an organization in better decision making in terms of marketing, investment, disinvestment, partnership, merger & acquisition among many others. Better decisions, based on past scientific data are attracting companies to invest in big data analytics. Big Collaborations in Big Data Industry There are numerous technology giants which are dealing with Hadoop solutions like IBM, Intel & Microsoft. In the last couple of years, much eminent collaboration has been taking place in Hadoop industry, which can also be seen as one of the primary reasons for an upsurge in market. Few major partnerships in the Hadoop business, which has taken place in the last couple of years, are enlisted below. Ÿ At Scale Partners with Cloudera and Tableau to speed
Ÿ
November 2017 |
up the deployment of Big Data analytics applications TERADATA partners with HORTONWORKS to accelerate business value from big data technologies. Ÿ MapR and DataScience.com join forces to speed data science and machine learning in the Enterprise. Ÿ Ÿ
Mammoth Data Generation: The amount of data being generated is growing exponentially with each passing day. The magnitude of data being generated by humans, machines and their interactions on social media itself is gigantic. There are more than 2 billion monthly Facebook users present on Mobile as of now, which is many times more as compared to the number of Facebook users in 2012. This shows how fast the number of users is growing on social media and how fast the data is getting generated daily. Not only the social media but almost all organizations are also contributing towards the mammoth data generation with each passing year. A wide variety of data is getting generated from varied channels such as structured, semistructured and unstructured. Previously, the data from excel and databases used to get stored in back-end but now the | November 2017
data is coming in the form of images, audios & videos as well. To store, retrieve and process this gigantic heterogeneous data in an efficient and faster way is a huge challenge for many organizations across the globe. Hadoop is known for storing, processing and analyzing colossal heterogeneous data in a much faster and efficient way as compared to other contemporaries. This facet of Hadoop technology is pulling companies to invest in Hadoop technology and thus driving Hadoop business in an upward direction. Researchers have forecasted that 40 Zettabytes (40,000 Exabytes) will be generated by 2020, which is an increase of 300 times from 2005. All these data contain very useful business insight, which if carefully processed, can help companies to gauge eminent consumer behavior. Emerging Markets to Deliver Most Profitable Returns North America has been a dominant region in the Hadoop business for a long time and will continue to retain that status; as industry forecasted a steady growth of Hadoop in North America over the next couple of years. However, the
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Hadoop marketplace in Asia PaciďŹ c is projected to expand at the fastest pace of 30.2 percent CAGR. Europe is also projected to grow upwards in the next few years due to the expanding big data management capabilities across sectors such as government, retail, and BFSI in the region. Amid Growth prospect; there is a genuine Security concern Big data is not new to large organizations; however, it’s also becoming popular among smaller and medium sized organizations due to cost reduction and provides easy to manage data. Cloud-based storage has assisted data mining and collection. However, this big data and cloud storage integration has triggered a challenge to privacy and security threats. Therefore, just a normal security check cannot discover security patches for a continuous streaming data. For this purpose, organization needs full-time privacy while data streaming and big data analysis. Hadoop developers need to ďŹ x the security concern with big data usage & only then will the exponential positive growth of Hadoop in near future will become inevitable. Apart from various factors mentioned in this article, lucrative growth opportunities, developing economies, increasing penetration of the Internet & availability of affordable smartphones, technologically and digitally improved industrial infrastructures, and the exponential rise in numbers of mobile device users will continue to fuel the growth of Hadoop technology in future.
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November 2017 |
Pioneer’s Desk
B
y Adrian Hinrichsen, Marketing & Business Development Director of Datumize
The above infographic is astonishing when you really delve into the numbers. The last few years have been quite interesting when it comes to the IoT space. I have personally taken a back seat and watched how the industry has sprouted, from an embryonic platform to an early catalyst for possibly becoming the next “Skynet” (no pun intended). For some time now pundits have been predicting great things for the Internet of Things (IoT), from smart cities and smart homes to smart energy grids, driverless cars and autonomous robots. What is in no doubt are the number of “things” that now have “connected capability”, and it is rising fast; according to one leading analyst, 6.4billion connected things will be in use by the end of this year, an increase of 30% from last year, meaning 5million new things are being connected up to the internet every single day. The term internet of things (IoT) was coined round about the turn of the millennium and is widely held to mean the connection of “things”. There are a number of factors driving IoT. First, consumers are demanding greater convenience, speed of delivery and personalisation of the goods and services they consume.
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There are also other drivers for the IoT explosion we are witnessing. The costs of infrastructure are on a downward trajectory. Sensors are becoming smaller, cheaper and more energy efficient and battery life is improving. The further innovation of cloud computing platforms and the emergence of specialised IoT services on them mean that the data collection and analysis necessary for wide scale deployment are more accessible. Here you can see one infographic from Deloitte in 2014 that shows the value they analysed for smart homes and smart cars. Interestingly enough these percentages have not differed too much till now. Is IoT Fact or Future? IoT is right at the top of the “hype” cycle and firmly perched to what everyone is talking about. Mckinsey & Co predict that the economic impact of the IoT could be between $3.9tn and $11.1tn per year by 2025. That is a huge industry considering it was only born 16 years ago. One of the main question I get asked a lot is “where do you see IoT making the most advantage”? Currently the top industries are domestic/leisure, utilities/energy and transport/automotive. At Datumize we are seeing traction in
November 2017 |
all these sectors with each project very much different to the next. Our everyday environment is changing, sometimes without us even noticing, however our lives are being made easier for it. Although we are moving quickly to an IoT environment, we are also facing “Barriers to connection”, where businesses and consumers do not share the same vision of IoT. One suspicion is the concern for security and how IoT technology could be hijacked and manipulated by those for ill intent. Other factors are more technical in nature, and seem to be around operating systems, pricing and current offerings. All of these factors will have to be overcome if we are to achieve the holy grail of “smart Cities” and connection of things. In Conclusion IoT is a concept which is no longer discussed only by technical scientists, it has very much moved into the mainstream. Certain industries have embraced IoT more than others, for example domestic/leisure, utilities and transport are leading the way. We are all consumers and citizens, and a great deal of education needs to occur before the reality of IoT is understood and accepted by us at large. Data is the key to IoT and organisations seems to want to get their hands on that “Dark data”, but do not know what to do with it once they have it, or how to turn it into a value for their business. It is here that obstacles occur in our everyday business environment as the resources needed have currently not been implemented into the infrastructure and this will not happen until businesses understand the value that is passing them by on a daily basis within their organisation. IoT is potentially the most exciting technical revolution to have happened in a long time, and if we are able to help businesses and consumers connect in a smarter way, help build the resources and infrastructure to support this new environment, then the way we live and work will change forever, in a very positive way.
Adrian Hinrichsen Marketing & Business Development Director, Datumize
| November 2017
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Editor’s Pick
J
ust a while ago, companies were not sure about using big data analytics for business execution. There was a simple reason for the organization to not venture into big data. It was the cost of analysis. In this modern era, everything went digital, so data is flooding in from every single direction. Organizations are getting overloaded with terabytes and petabytes of data in different formats from sources like operational & transactional systems, customer service points, also mobile & web media. Now, it creates a problem of storage. And with no proper utilization of the data, collecting & storing is a waste of resource. In the past it was difficult to process such data without relevant technology. Significance of Big Data Analytics As its name suggests, big data, obviously, is big. It is so big that traditional data processing techniques are just not enough to analyze it. With the ‘beginning of the digital age’ data explosion has occurred. And because of the volume, variety & velocity at which the data is growing, it is extremely difficult for organizations to store or compute
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this data for timely & accurate decisions. Here big data analytics comes to the rescue. To examine enormous amount of data and uncover the relevant features that will help businesses to make better decisions, is what Big data analytics work for. But to make big data really helpful an organization needs to know that it is really applicable or not and the ability to make it useful. If an organization has the needed resources, it should definitely move forward to the big data analytics. Big Esteem of Big Data Analytics The esteem of big data is not just limited to the volume & velocity, but also referred by the variety, variability & complexity of the data. So it needs only some upgrades & efforts to fully perceive the potential of big data. It just that only once an organization gets it running, the benefits are just more than one’s expectations. It is just out of our imagination the amount of data users are creating for different organizations like social media interactions, product reviews, free job portal & alerts, customer service & transactional points. November 2017 |
Big Data Analytics Key To
Business Growth Why Big Data Analytics is a key to business growth?
3. It Minimizes the risk through valuable insights
The important thing of big data analytics is the way organizations use it to boost their business performance, innovate and provide better customer service. Here are some of the ways big data analytics are proving to be the key to business growth.
The most dangerous thing for a company is to make wrong business decisions. But with the help of big data, organizations can minimize their risks through the valuable insights they can gather through analysis. 4. Helpful in Innovation of new products and services
1. Boosts Performance through better data analysis With the help of big data analytics one can take a look at his organization, how exactly & efficiently it is working. Like this, based upon the findings of this analysis, an organization can work on to make the workforce more effective. 2. Helps to understand market sentiment & competitor strategies Big data analysis helps organizations to be forward in the business competition. The market sentiments related to the organization and its competitors can be understood by simply analyzing the big data. It will help organizations to create strategies to make the right decision. | November 2017
Big data analysis helps organizations to understand better what customers want and with the help of this, they can provide better after-sales service. Additionally, they can be innovative about their new products so that it can pertain to the customer’s viewpoint. 5. Online reputation of brands can be monitored more precisely Especially those organizations who are active in social media, big data analytics is of great help, to actively monitor & improve their social media presence. Not just that, it also gives them a good idea about the brand’s views on the web. Big data analytics are becoming a key to business growth, especially, for the organizations who want to grow in this age of innovation.
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