Maybe Santa Needs Big Data for Christmas
December 24, 2012
Attivio has had a good 2012. To top if off, it looks like they landed a big account, the North Pole to be specific. All in good fun Attivio has crafted a press release aimed at streamlining Santa’s intense December 24th workload. Read “What if Santa Used Big Data” for an amusing look at Santa’s information architecture needs.
The piece begins:
“We’re not sure how Santa has historically handled all the data required to make his yearly rounds work, but this morning we received a press release from Saint Nick and Attivio stating his new approach: big data. I got a chuckle out of this and figured you might too. This is a big get for Attivio, locking down the North Pole as a customer. On the other hand, it’s a bit depressing that the data will be leading to more coal delivered this year.”
Aside from the downside of more coal being delivered this year, it seems that a smart Big Data solution is good news for Santa and could be good news for your organization too. Attivio has made some headlines, but LucidWorks is another Big Data contender. Built on open source, LucidWorks has been an industry standard for years. Customer support, training, and an investment in open source infrastructure is what LucidWorks brings to the table. Happy holidays, and here’s hoping you find no coal in your stocking this year.
Emily Rae Aldridge, December 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Big Data May Not Be All Its Cracked Up To Be
December 24, 2012
Over the past year, the buzzword has been Big Data. Companies have instituted plans to analyze their unstructured data to learn about new trends and create better business insights. According to the Jonathan Macdonald Report, Big Data may not hold all the answers to making new endeavors in 2013, check out “The Big Data Disaster.” Macdonald makes five predictions about Big Data: the financial rewards are way off the mark, the Big Data experts are going to be conducting damage control, money will be lost, acquisitions bought for projects will lose their value, and then the world will move onto the next big trend.
Macdonald asserts that companies can back out, but probably will not due to them being too deep in the Big Data pool and not wanting to change. Companies are too focused on selfish financial gain and unrealistic approaches to business.
Macdonald plays into the fact that companies may be accessing private data. He states that there will be repercussions, because we live in an age of mass communication and ignorance will come back to bite businesses. His closing remark:
“You seriously consider the above words and ask yourself, as a human, are you in the game of exploiting information regardless of morality, or instead wishing to pursue a purpose that people can believe in, and by doing so enable relationships of mutual value that will bring you profits beyond your imagination?”
Big Data experts are not going to be pleased by this article, but Macdonald does make valid points. What will companies sacrifice in order to make a bigger profit?
Whitney Grace, December 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Visual Aids Always Make Data Analysis Better
December 24, 2012
You might have asked yourself the question, “what is data?” The answer according to Dictionary.com is individual facts, statistics, or items of information or a body of facts/information. Data basically supplies you with knowledge about a subject. When it comes to data analysis, you will probably ask yourself this question as well, “what is the best way for me to represent my data findings?” The answer to this one is even simpler: use visual aids. If you are unsure where to find useful and free data visuals, Computer World has been keeping a running inventory of “Chart and Image Gallery: 30+ Free Tools for Data Visualization and Analysis.”
Running through the list you will notices there are free tools for presentations, charts, and other ways to represent your analysis findings without relying on an expensive, commercial software. These free tools do require a certain set of skills; each one is ranked according to difficulty:
“Skill levels are represented as numbers from easiest to most difficult to learn and use:
1. Users who are comfortable with basic spreadsheet tasks
2. Users who are technically proficient enough not to be frightened off by spending a couple of hours learning a new application
3. Power users
4. Users with coding experience or specialized knowledge in a field like GIS or network analysis.”
With Big Data becoming even a bigger player in the business world taking advantage of these tools will help your organize the results from your Big Data analysis. Visual aids have come a long way from the standard PowerPoint.
Whitney Grace, December 24, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
More Funding for DataSift Means More Offerings
December 20, 2012
Technology focused on analytics for the social realm picks up speed. Tech.Huanqiu.com reported on more venture capital funding going towards DataSift. The article “Social Data Analysis Company DataSift $15 Financing” reveals the details on the funding given to this firm specializing in helping developers and third-party access to Twitter, Facebook and other sites.
This technology uses natural language processing techniques and is therefore not solely limited to search function keywords. Their most unique functionality involves their many filters that can sort information according to a variety of factors.
The article discusses how DataSift’s 300 corporate customers, but:
“[C]ompared with 200 a quarter has improved, including Fortune 500 companies, also including social technology companies, news agencies, consulting firms and government agencies. DataSift also recently released a variety of new services to facilitate corporate social data analysis and commercial data integration. This service and business intelligence applications, databases, data warehousing platform and other cloud computing services complement each other, including Amazon DynamoDB, Amazon S3, MongoDB, CouchDB, FTP / SFTP, ElasticSearch and WebHooks.”
When DataSift gets more money, they will have even more ability to support more services. Not that the current list has that many shortcomings.
Megan Feil, December 20, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Small Business Gets Business Intelligence Too
December 17, 2012
Many enterprise information management vendors target larger enterprise organizations that can stomach paying big bucks to manage information. There are more and more small businesses with savvy ownership looking to extract value from big data, however. Several very affordable options are outlined in the Terra article, “Data Crunch: 5 Analysis Tools for Small Businesses.”
Tech giant Google obviously has a solution in this arena, like they do in every other arena. The Application Gallery is an app market connecting third-party developers to Google Analytics to essentially expand its features.
We learned:
“Google Apps Application Gallery can be a place to start for owners looking to upgrade their data analysis IQ quickly and easily. Price: You can browse the Application Gallery for free. You can purchase apps for varying fees. Hub’scan runs $750 for 250,000 analyzed pages, LogMycalls is free to start, with paid services running $29 per month.”
Additionally, the other four solutions are: WolframAlpha’s Facebook Reports, Quantum Leap Buzz, JackBe Presto, and Recorded Future. Business intelligence for small business has definitely arrived. The only question remaining is whether or not these tiny companies have the resources to use it.
Megan Feil, December 17, 2012
Sponsored by Arnold IT.com, developer of Augmentext
Kroll Takes on Search and Restoration Software
December 16, 2012
With a current arsenal of ediscovery and data recovery options, Kroll Ontrack is now offering a new search and restoration tool, Ontrack PowerControls through a partnership with Info X. The press release was found on Business Wire “Kroll Ontrack Partners with Global Distributor Info X to Address Demand for Granular Search and Restoration Software.”
Info X provides storage solutions to clients worldwide. Their partnership with Kroll Ontrack ensures that resellers will have access and technical support for the software solution. This is to replace a full-site restore or backup.
Exchange and SharePoint are the culprits of annual data loss according to a recent Kroll Ontrack survey of 326 individuals in IT, engineering and sales. Nearly half of organizations have this problem.
Sr. Manager of Enterprise Software Dan Leary, Kroll Ontrack was quoted in the article:
“This partnership with Info X enables more resellers to offer a powerful tool that addresses a common, but time-consuming problem. Ontrack PowerControls works directly with your backups and allows you to extract and restore only the items that you need, saving IT administrators 50 percent of restoration time when compared to using traditional methods.”
Altergrity Kroll expands into search and restoration software. Is this a sign there is room in the market or just a company putting feelers out in every possible arena? Time will tell.
Megan Feil, December 16, 2012
Sponsored by Arnold IT.com, developer of Augmentext
Big Data Drives Business Decisions with Enterprise Search
December 12, 2012
Big data is making the transition from a catchy trend to a serious power in the business world. A flurry of acquisitions involving big data and enterprise search systems are proving that value is being added to big data. According to recent article “Structuring the Unstructured: Why Big Data is Suddenly Interested in Enterprise Search” on CMSWire, this can be attributed to the inclusion of unstructured data (hard-to-predict human content,) into big data analyses, and companies are becoming more and more interested in creating actionable insights from this data set.
The article continues to explain the need to obtain value from unstructured data:
“It is the hands-on application of processes, pragmatism and checksums that produce the most value from unstructured data. A focus on transparency of process creates confidence in data provenance and enables actionable intelligence from unstructured data. That combination of technology and process is what is driving recent acquisitions and what can drive your business to make better, more accurate decisions based on your unstructured big data.”
The whole point of making structured and unstructured data available is so that the right information can drive business decisions. Intrafind makes finding the right data at the right time a bit easier in the age of big data. The company’s software and enterprise search solutions can help you target necessary information from the big data madness and also provide the consultancy services to help you decide what to do with that information.
Andrea Hayden, December 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Acronym with an Added Buzz Word is Bound to Sell
December 12, 2012
Everyone wants in on big data; there is no question about the popularity and ubiquity of this catchall. PC Advisor UK realizes this, but they also tell us about something new in their recent article, “Big Data Leading to New Breed of Service Provider.”
Data as a service (DaaS) providers have been around for years. The concept is nothing new; Dun & Bradstreet, LexisNexis or Thomson Reuters have been doing it for years. However, they were not attached to the buzz phrase of big data. EMC released a report recently, “Big Data as a Service: A Market and Technology Perspective,” that shows startups for the BDaaS markets should have no problem getting funding.
The article reveals who is looking for a piece of the pie:
“-EMC is pushing its integrated stack– Greenplum HD an enterprise-ready Hadoop platform, and Isilon NAS for Hadoop-to Big Data platform providers looking to take on big Hadoop jobs for clients. (Would that be BD/PaaS?)
-Opera Solutions has grown from 10 data scientists in 2004 to 220 today. The company offers firms in the Global 250 and large governmental organizations a semi-turnkey Big Data solution set aimed at analytics and insights.”
Trend Micro and LexisNexis Risk Solutions are also contenders. It would not be surprising if all four walked away with some funding; the demand is simply projected to be that great.
Megan Feil, December 13, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
eDiscovery Market Quandrant Analyzes Top eDiscovery Solutions
December 12, 2012
Market Watch recently reported on a competitive analysis for the market of eDiscovery solutions in the news release, “The Radicati Group Releases eDiscovery Market Quadrant 2012.”
According to the article, the eDiscovery Market quadrant provides a competitive analysis of the eDiscovery market by ranking solutions based on a four quadrant system breaking them into categories of: “Mature Players,” “Specialists,” “Trail Blazers,” and “Top Players”. Each solutions ranking is based on features, functionality, and market share.
When describing the field of eDiscovery, the article states:
“eDiscovery solutions enable organizations to identify, preserve, collect, process, review, analyze, and produce enterprise data. The eDiscovery process enables businesses to satisfy their corporate compliance, retention records, internal investigation, and legal discovery requirements. Data can be collected from various corporate repositories and can include: email, text documents, images, databases, audio files, web sites, computer applications, and more.”
We are not sure what a market quadrant is, nor what a Radici is. But this sure sounds impressive. Not quite at the Nate Silver “predictive analytics” level of visibility but certainly a step forward.
Jasmine Ashton, December 12, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Mondeca Moves Into Electronic Patient Records
December 10, 2012
The healthcare world continues its creep into the twenty-first century, and now Mondeca is lending a hand with the process. The French company’s Web site announces, “Mondeca Helps to Bring Electronic Patient Record to Reality.” Tasked with implementing healthcare management systems across France, that country’s healthcare agency, ASIP Santé, has turned to Mondeca for help. The press release describes the challenge:
“The task is a daunting one since most healthcare providers use their own custom terminologies and medical codes. This is due to a number of issues with standard terminologies: 1) standard terminologies take too long to be updated with the latest terms; 2) significant internal data, systems, and expertise rely on the usage of legacy custom terminologies; and 3) a part of the business domain is not covered by a standard terminology.
“The only way forward was to align the local custom terminologies and codes with the standard ones. This way local data can be automatically converted into the standard representation, which will in turn allow to integrate it with the data coming from other healthcare providers.”
The process began by aligning the standard terminology Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) with the related terminology common in Paris hospitals. Mondeca helped the effort with their expertise in complex organizational and technical processes, like setting up collaborative spaces and aligning and exporting terminology.
Our question: Will doctors use these systems without introducing more costs and errors in the push for cost efficiency? Let us hope so.
Established in 1999, Mondeca serves clients in Europe and North America with solutions for the management of advanced knowledge structures: ontologies, thesauri, taxonomies, terminologies, metadata repositories, knowledge bases, and linked open data. The firm is based in Paris, France.
Cynthia Murrell, December 10, 2012
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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