Big data’s rise to promince in the past few years has seen businesses and vendors alike scrambling to both identify use cases and to develop tools to give value to it.
The disruptive impact of data analytics can sometimes be hard to grasp but research firms and vendors are continuously producing reports to highlight the benefits that can be achieved.
CBR round up some of the must read big data reports in 2016 so far.
1. Forrester
Business Intelligence in the not-too distance future – more automated, pervasive, actionable.
Forrester is a research firm which also produces the Forrester Wave report looking at IT company and market trends.
The BI report looks at identifying how application development and delivery professionals can transform their existing data and analytics investments into systems of insight with fully automated, pervasive, and actionable BI.
The problem it is trying to deal with is BI applications costing too much and taking too long to develop and deploy. As business continues to move forward quickly with technology deployments there is a growing necessity to act swiftly to meet customer demands.
Boris Evelson, VP, Principal Analyst of application development and delivery professionals is the lead author with contributions from 10 other authors.
2. 451 Research
Using the cloud to maximise the value of big data
The research conducted by 451 Research and commissioned by AWS is based on in depth interviews with big data users whose primary deployment is cloud based.
The purpose of highlighting this report as one to read is to show the benefits of combining technologies, cloud along with big data analytics.
Essentially the report is highlighting how cloud is helping to deliver business value from big data.
Improvements achieved by combining the technologies include query times for one organisation improve by 4,000% over on-premises systems, 50% reduction in operating costs, and moving from six – nine months to carry out a business critical risk assessment to a week or less.
Key insights such as improving operational efficiencies and enabling and supporting new business initiatives are highlighted along with users and use cases.
3. EY
Global forensic data analytics survey 2016
Big data has no point unless it is serving a purpose, which is why it is important to identify different areas in which it can be used – identifying threats is one of those areas.
EY’s report includes a survey of 665 executives globally across nine industry sectors that includes financial services, life sciences, manufacturing and power and utilities.
The report highlights that cyber breach or insider threat is the second-highest risk areas on which 70% of respondents focus their FDA efforts, internal fraud was ranked top at 77%.
The aim of the report is to help businesses understand and articulate the threat of fraud and cyber risks and the value of forensic data analytics in managing these risks.
Highlights of the report include looking at current and emerging risks and how they are driving demand and that companies are investing more of their FDA spend on proactive monitoring initiatives for surveillance of larger of volumes of data from a wider variety of sources.
4. GE Digital
The case for an industrial big data platform
Continuing the trend of identifying different use cases for data, GE Software has produced a whitepaper looking at the importance of digital platforms and their ability to transform industries.
The white paper says that the need for a new industrial platform is partly being driven by the advents and ubiquity of new and cheaper forms of computing, storage and sensor technologies. Additionally it points out that from the COO to the field technician, industrial companies are becoming much more mobile and consumer like.
The report says: "The new era of industrial productivity that can be unleashed by an industrial big data platform needs an ecosystem larger than GE if it is to transform not just the industrial world, but the global economy."
In addition to this call to arms the report goes on to highlight various use cases such as looking at the modern 200-turbine wind firm and the amount of data that comes from it.
Mining are transportation are also highlighted as use cases with the report highlighting problems faced, the scale of the problem and where analytics can be used to see benefits.
5. Splunk
Splunk, Big data and the future of security
This Splunk report looks at the future of big data with regards to security. The report calls current IT security tools and mindsets no longer adequate to meet the scope and complexity of today’s threats.
In addition to looking at the implications of a new modus operandi the report also identifies an overdependence on SIEM.
Due to the nature of the report it does identify its own solutions as a potential answer to problems being posed but taking the product aside it identifies how to deal with unknown threats using big data and analytics.
Points include taking the "actor view" to understand the identities, goals and methods of potential adversaries. A second point is assessing actions and determining if a pattern of threatening behaviour is emerging.
