Sometimes I wonder looking at how “Business Intelligence” is moving today. Experts in the field are trying their best to stretch the scope as much as possible for this domain. When it comes to storing the data at the back end we are trying to move as backward as possible. While when it comes to display the information we are moving as forward as possible.
Remember those days when you used to store the data in the flat files possibly at your local system. Then you faced the problem of data management and size. You moved further backwards and you started to store the Data in the RDBMS setup at remote machines and distributed across multiple nodes. Now you see even bigger data. You find it further difficult to manage at your own premises. Guess what, now you decide to go further backwards, possibly out of your premises. You start looking for Big Data Storage options located remotely either in the form of Data Centres or as Clouds. Clouds sound as attractive option as we can find many cheaper options which can provide gigantic storage spaces with already setup big data processing frameworks; Amazon Elastic Map Reduce being a good example. Even if we want to use any other commercial solution for big data processing, setting it up on the cloud should not be a big problem. Though, the Safety and Security challenges associated with Clouds still remain. We can still argue and discuss for hours if it is a good strategic decision to move to clouds just like people do today in the enterprise. Leaving behind all these arguments and challenges Clouds are gaining more and more popularity day by day. So don’t be surprised if your kid modifies his or her understanding of the Cloud. Gone are the days when Clouds were found only in the sky.
While on one side we see data moving further backwards, on the other side we can see the information moving further forward. Earlier you used to get the information in the form of reports on the paper. Somebody used to prepare the reports for you, get them printed on the paper and bring those reports to you finally. Then you started getting reports on your computer screens by connecting your Thick Desktop based viewer on you terminal to the Reporting Solution. Then you got Adhoc Analytics over browsers that allowed you to play with your data that too from any location over the web. Now you want the real time interactive Adhoc Analytics over the handheld devices; mobile and tablets. It’s amazing to see the BI solutions today in the markets allowing you to do real time Adhoc Analytics over your big data stored in some cloud on your iPad. It feels great to see the important yet horrible big data appearing in the form of really pretty charts, widgets and dashboards that too on devices like iPads. So now you don’t need to be worried. Just go wherever you want to go still you are not far from making the important strategic decisions instantly.
Remember those days when you used to store the data in the flat files possibly at your local system. Then you faced the problem of data management and size. You moved further backwards and you started to store the Data in the RDBMS setup at remote machines and distributed across multiple nodes. Now you see even bigger data. You find it further difficult to manage at your own premises. Guess what, now you decide to go further backwards, possibly out of your premises. You start looking for Big Data Storage options located remotely either in the form of Data Centres or as Clouds. Clouds sound as attractive option as we can find many cheaper options which can provide gigantic storage spaces with already setup big data processing frameworks; Amazon Elastic Map Reduce being a good example. Even if we want to use any other commercial solution for big data processing, setting it up on the cloud should not be a big problem. Though, the Safety and Security challenges associated with Clouds still remain. We can still argue and discuss for hours if it is a good strategic decision to move to clouds just like people do today in the enterprise. Leaving behind all these arguments and challenges Clouds are gaining more and more popularity day by day. So don’t be surprised if your kid modifies his or her understanding of the Cloud. Gone are the days when Clouds were found only in the sky.
While on one side we see data moving further backwards, on the other side we can see the information moving further forward. Earlier you used to get the information in the form of reports on the paper. Somebody used to prepare the reports for you, get them printed on the paper and bring those reports to you finally. Then you started getting reports on your computer screens by connecting your Thick Desktop based viewer on you terminal to the Reporting Solution. Then you got Adhoc Analytics over browsers that allowed you to play with your data that too from any location over the web. Now you want the real time interactive Adhoc Analytics over the handheld devices; mobile and tablets. It’s amazing to see the BI solutions today in the markets allowing you to do real time Adhoc Analytics over your big data stored in some cloud on your iPad. It feels great to see the important yet horrible big data appearing in the form of really pretty charts, widgets and dashboards that too on devices like iPads. So now you don’t need to be worried. Just go wherever you want to go still you are not far from making the important strategic decisions instantly.
