Will analytics rule over big data?
IT market research firm Gartner has been quoted as saying that Big Data Discovery is the biggest trend in analytics. It is the logical amalgamation of three of the latest trends that have emerged in analytics in the last few years. Citing zdnet.com, Cisco software evangelist Ravi Namboori says they are Big Data, Data Science, and Data Discovery. Each these fields, which has seen exponential development, has both advantages and shortcomings.
Although Data Discovery is very helpful and easy-to-use, it permits restricted depth of study. On the other hand, although Data Science allows for potent analysis, it is slow, complicated, and tough to carry out. Even as Big Data allows processes volumes, velocity, and varieties of information to be processed, it is difficult to implement owing to paucity of talent.
But one trend’s shortcoming is another trend’s advantage, which is why when they come together, they will be very valuable for data scientists. This is what makes Gartner feel that Big Data Discovery will become a niche market segment by the year 2017. The evolving Big Data Discovery tools, as Cisco expert Ravi Namboori avers, will be easier to manage than products of data science. They will be available to a variety of users, with the ability to leverage it to numerous data sources.
Gartner Analyst Joao Tapadinhas is quoted as saying that these tools will also be made of new Citizen Data Scientists, who will link the skills of traditional business specialists with that of the proficiency of adept statisticians. These users would not replace existing data scientists but would add value to their restricted availability to increase the use of these potent novel technologies to increasing number of business opportunities.
ERP specialist SAP is a good example of a company that has been attempting to bring together these three different fields. It has a quick, in-memory platform called SAP HANA, included in which are several Big Data analytic engines, like predictive analytics, in addition to links to open source platforms of Hadoop and Spark. The SAP Lumira data discovery product, says Ravi Namboori, a Cisco solutions architect, runs on top of the platform to offer self-service data influencing and visualization. It integrates very well with the newest SAP Predictive Analytics 2.0 offering. This predictive analysis product is a combination of a traditional advanced analytics workbench with the user-friendly automated data preparation and SAP Infinite Insight offering mining.
SAP is reportedly taking this experiment to a higher level. The company has released new packaged business application dubbed as SAP Predictive Maintenance.
In addition, SAP is taking things to the next level after taking up co-innovation projects with its customers. Used in this application are embedded data science algorithms, traditional business measures, and sensor data access, which have been combined to produce new best-practice business procedures. Looking at these, Ravi Namboori, who was formerly associated with Cisco, wonders if Big Data Discovery will upstage the existing practices or become obsolete over time. But it cannot be denied that large-scale deployment of user-friendly Data Discovery tools will take place and they will be integrated with more complex Data systems.
