We Can Tackle Pebibytes of Data
December 9, 2012
How big will big data get? We have to find the words to describe the numbers first. Search Storage calls out a whole bevy of prefixes all too familiar to anyone interested in big data in the article, “Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera, Peta, and All That.
There are several new prefixes that could apply too: Kibi, mebi, gibi, tebi, pebi, and all that, which are relatively new prefixes designed to express power-of-two multiples. These were created in order to eradicate any confusion that might arise between decimal (power-of-10) and binary (power-of-2) numeration terms.
Binary data stored in memory or on a hard drive, USB, etc. power-of-2 multipliers are used, the article informs us. Continuing on that note:
“Technically, the uppercase K should be used for kilo- when it represents 210. Therefore 1 KB (one kilobyte) is 210, or 1,024, bytes; 1 MB (one megabyte) is 220, or 1,048,576 bytes. The choice of power-of-10 versus power-of-2 prefix multipliers can appear arbitrary. It helps to remember that in common usage, multiples of bits are almost always expressed in powers of 10, while multiples of bytes are almost always expressed in powers of 2.”
We are waiting for the first company which asserts zeptobyte capabilities. Of course, another company would start asserting yoctobytes are no problem. Either way, the article cited is a good way to keep track of some commonly used big data buzzwords.
Megan Feil, December 09, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Mobile Enterprise Traffic Needs a Reliable Knowledge Road Map
December 7, 2012
Big Data and mobile devices are having a profound impact on the way today’s businesses function. This increase in mobility over the past decade has brought about a major transition for the IT industry, and there is no question that the mobile revolution will continue into the future.
The Mobile Enterprise’s article “IT’s “Third Platform”: Mobile, Cloud, Social and Big Data” talks about how IT that remains stationary and refuses to embrace the mobile movement will end up becoming stagnant within the next year:
“The IT industry as a whole is moving toward the mobile/social/cloud/big data world of the third platform much more quickly than many realize: from 2013 through 2020, these technologies will drive around 90% of all the growth in the IT market. Companies that are not putting 80% or more of their competitive energy into this new market will be trapped in the legacy portion of the market, growing even slower than global GDP. IDC expects predictive analytics will be a particular hot spot in the months to come.”
Mobile, cloud and social along with a grain or so of Big Data means an ever increasingly complex enterprise information environment. Companies wishing to keep up with the ‘enterprise mobility’ traffic will need a reliable knowledge road map. Working with solution providers like Intrafind that understand the full scope of enterprise information access needs can take a bit of the pain out of finding the right solutions.
Jennifer Shockley, December 7, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Big Data Solution From PolySpot Delivers Quickly and Efficiently
December 7, 2012
Big data continues to offer much promise for many enterprise organizations as there are case studies presented showing companies reaping benefits left and right. However, there are many companies using big data solutions that are not impressed with their results. Datamation reveals more information on this subject in “Big Data Challenges: Business Analytics Pain Points Persist.”
Over 300 senior executives and managers from medium and large companies around the world were surveyed this summer on their experiences utilizing big data and the technologies needed to do so. 55% reported complaints with the technologies they were using.
The article states:
Simply put, more than half say their tools don’t give them the information they need, don’t include key data points, aren’t available to all who need the info, aren’t fast enough or easy to use. And anyone who is surprised at those gripes has been hiding in the data center too long. I’ve heard the same (and more) complaints five or even 10 years ago.
The key to successful ROI with big data technologies lies in selecting a solution that delivers information quickly and efficiently. Using a library of over 100 connectors, PolySpot is considered preeminent by those who have deployed this technology for working with big data.
Megan Feil, December 7, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
LucidWorks Remains Focused on Good Data
December 7, 2012
After undergoing a recent name change in the early fall, some might wonder about LucidWorks’ strategy and identity going forward. Jeff Kelly addresses that just that question in, “LucidWorks Changes Name, But Remains Focused on Data-Centric Applications,” on DevelopsAngle.
Kelly begins:
“LucidWorks recently changed its name (from Lucid Imagination), but the Redwood City, Calif.-based company remains laser focused on delivering powerful data-centric application development platforms. In fact, the company streamlined its product offerings, eliminating multiple community and enterprise editions to focus on just two core products: LucidWorks Search and LucidWorks Big Data. Both the name and product changes are meant to reduce confusion and reiterate the company’s core mission – helping enterprises and developers build powerful and scalable data-focused applications, CEO Paul Doscher told me in a recent conversation.”
Kelly goes on to relay his discussion with Doscher and major ideas that emerged from that session. Among them is a discussion of how foundational technologies are not a means unto themselves. Rather, Kelly calls them “enablers.” However, it is the role of companies like LucidWorks to step in and fill the gap, taking these enabling technologies and allowing individuals and organizations to derive real value from them by making them accessible, intuitive, and supported. That is, in our opinion, LucidWorks’ greatest achievement.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 07, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Value Can be Delivered Across the Enterprise in the Form of Big Data
December 6, 2012
We have heard about big data in regards to it’s volume, velocity and variety, but what about value? CMS Wire asserts “Big Data Explosion Offers Value.” Further discussing value, the article deconstructs what factors add up to value in regards to big data.
If 90 percent of all data in the world has been created in the last two years, as this article says is the case, then it is no wonder that experts say relevant and important insights can be culled from big data at-large. Relevance is the key to gleaning any value from data – and that fact remains true for big data.
In order to understand the gems of insight hidden in big data, business intelligence software solutions are needed. Sitecore Analytics Director Ron Person discusses the need for new analytical methods:
‘Current business intelligence provides comparative charts and creates trend lines,’ he said. ‘The future will be self-learning analytics and self-tuning sites. We will look for patterns we don’t know exist — the ‘unknown unknowns.’ Known unknowns are when you know what you’re looking for. Unknown unknowns are finding patterns you don’t know are there.’
He is correct: next-generation technologies for business intelligence will interpret and create information to deliver it to enterprise users who need it. However, the future seems like it is already here when you think about solutions from vendors such as PolySpot.
Megan Feil, December 6, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
LucidWorks Rebranding Offers Clarity to Clients
December 6, 2012
In early fall 2012, LucidWorks went through a major rebranding project. Formerly Lucid Imagination, LucidWorks is a provider of customer-grade enterprise search solutions based on the open source projects Apache Lucene and Solr. While Lucid Imagination has been a major industry presence and contender for many years, the company wanted a change that would streamline their presence and provide clarity to clients. Therefore, the decision was made to bring the name of the company in line with the name of the product line, hence, LucidWorks. More is offered about the rebranding project in the blog entry, “LucidWorks Website Launch.”
The entry states:
“LucidWorks originally came to Eben Design with multiple disorganized websites that created a confusing message to customers. We worked with them to develop a website that was clean, modern, and clearly organized and explained their product offerings. Our detailed specifications process determined all of the intricacies of the sites and the wants/needs of LucidWorks; we then could create a website that effectively communicated with their clients.”
While the focus of this entry is coming from the Web developer side, another important element of the process is LucidWorks’ devotion to their customers. Always improving, adapting, and updating, LucidWorks is on the leading edge of open source technology, particularly open source search. One great example is LucidWorks Big Data, as a very early development in the Big Data movement, and one that is a cost-effective open source option.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 06, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
PolySpot Creates and Delivers Insights and Knowledge
December 5, 2012
The source of data is not singular these days. There are many spouts that funnel into a much larger pool than ever before. According to IBM, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of information are generated every day, as cited in the recent article “Big Questions for Big Data” from the Huffington Post.
The author drew upon his experience in participating and presenting at the MIT SENSEable City Laboratory‘s UrbanCode Symposium. While much excitement characterized the sentiment of the event, there was also several concerns that the attendees (students of public policy) expressed. As a side note, the author noted that these folks are not often fluent in technology but are aware of potential issues in bringing new methods to the table.
In reference to organizational capacity, the following issues were identified:
Data are resources, but they are not information. Translating data into information and knowledge takes organizational capacity that does not exist in most of the world’s urban centers, e.g., a new generation of “data professionals,” processes and tools to gather, digest and transform big data into information that can be understood and used to make mundane urban operations such as ensuring that the traffic signals are working to making major investment decisions to determine whether a new rail systems should be built.
All knowledge and insights are essentially interpretations. Vendors like PolySpot understand this idea and knowledge and insights easily come to fruition with their Information at Work solution.
Megan Feil, December 5, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
LucidWorks Makes Big Data Useful
December 5, 2012
Enterprise search is such a buzz word, that it not only sounds like a good idea, but it has almost become a mandatory one. Organizations do not sounds relevant or effective unless they have an enterprise search platform in place, and yet finding one that lessens the workload without deepening it is a challenge. Michael Vizard tackles that challenge in his recent article, “LucidWorks Breathes Programmable Life into Big Data and Enterprise Search.”
Vizard begins:
“Collecting data is one thing; however, making actual use of it is another. Enterprise search clearly has a role to play in terms of making Big Data accessible; the challenge is doing it in a way that other applications can utilize. To address that specific issue, LucidWorks this week formally released LucidWorks Big Data, an application development environment that brings together Hadoop, Mahout, Hive and Lucene/Solr enterprise search technology in a way that is designed to make these technologies accessible to the average developer by using a single RESTful application programming interface.”
Vizard goes on to point out that LucidWorks is one of the few serious competitors in the Big Data arena that relies on open source technology. If your organization is considering experimenting with Big Data, LucidWorks may be the only option that makes it both affordable and feasible, with its out-of-the-box operability.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 05, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Companies Benefit from Utilizing Information Delivery Solutions with Connectors
December 4, 2012
Where does one store 700 terabytes of data? Forbes sheds light on an answer from John Hopkins‘ scientists in the recent article, “What If Big Data Is Too Big? A Radical Solution May Be in DNA.” No more libraries, no more hard drives, just plain old DNA. Could this be the future of information storage and delivery?
Using DNA as just another digital storage device by manipulating the composition of the DNA molecules is the name of their game. This new method of storage would be a move away from binary data encoded as magnetic regions on a hard drive. While current solutions for information storage technology is rapidly improving at 50% per year, gene-sequencing technology could improve even more quickly.
We learned the following from the article:
With the reams of digital data we’re creating, there’s an immense potential for DNA to be a stable, long-term archive for ordinary information, such as photographs, books, financial records, medical files, and videos—all of which today are stored as computer code on fallible, power-hungry storage devices that, unlike DNA, become obsolete. Church’s next project is to build a biological VCR. His vision is to record everything that happens around us and archive the information in DNA.
While this may be feasible eventually, the focus for business is on the here and now. Luckily, there are many next-generation information storage and delivery technologies. PolySpot is a prime example of one using premier resources available like connectors to enable organizations to wrangle the beast of big data.
Megan Feil, December 4, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Range of Big Data Vendors Includes Information Delivery Experts
November 30, 2012
Sometimes an article comes along that simply hits the nail on the head. Venture Beat recently published one that does just that: “Big Data’s Dirty Secret: Companies are Storing Data but Don’t Know What to do with it.” The author posits on the whereabouts of case studies on big data and proceeds to fill in the gap. Conversations regarding big data are often relegated to technical aspects or theoretical and hypothetical predictions and projections.
Conferences such as CloudBeat, a conference that focuses on innovative cloud-based technologies, are showcasing companies using NoSQL databases to drive their business strategy.
The article zeroes in on the case study presented by Hope Arenas, Group Manager of e-Business Development at Bosch Tool Corporation, a company that provides power tools:
Arenas described how the company selected AgilOne to help standardize and collect data.’ What wasn’t easy was getting everyone on the same page and getting it clean and processed,’ Arenas explained. ‘We are just starting to analyze the data.’ For Arenas, Big Data means being able to connect with potential customers, start conversations with retailers, and target existing customers with marketing messages.
Every company has a unique trajectory and will have a unique relationship with big data. Vendors range from giants in the industry to incredibly promising information delivery experts like PolySpot. The trick for each organization is to find the right big data solution vendor that will work with their goals and specific situation.
Megan Feil, November 30, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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