Ask any two CIOs to define “big data” and you’re likely to get two different answers.
While everyone can agree that data is growing at an unprecedented rate, the challenge presented by it depends on how your organization sees business intelligence. Do you equate more data with more insight? Is accuracy of data more important than quantity? Or is it all about getting answers sooner to impact decisions earlier?
When you increase the amount of data, all of those challenges become harder. That difficulty increases exponentially, however, when you introduce unstructured and semi-structured information like social media text, videos and machine-generated data into the mix. And that’s the real challenge behind most big data initiatives: How do you get more answers from more (and more kinds of) data, more quickly and more accurately than you are today? It’s a lot to ask for, but technology companies are rising to the challenge with new and innovative solutions designed specifically for big data analytics.
SAP HANA is a great example of this. It’s not only a new solution but also a completely new database architecture that uses random-access memory (RAM) to store data instead of traditional disk storage, resulting in much faster query times. We’re not talking about doubling or tripling the query time, but accelerating it by a magnitude of 20X or more. The ability of the SAP HANA architecture to quickly analyze semi-structured and unstructured data removes one of the biggest obstacles to real-time analytics: the delay (or latency) between data creation and usable insight.
Traditional business intelligence systems require structured data that has been formatted and loaded into specific database fields. The process of data cleansing, loading and analytics can often take days, by which time much of the insight gained from analytics is no longer actionable. SAP HANA virtually eliminates this latency: data enters the system and is analyzed within microseconds.
This type of real-time analytics opens the door to all kinds of new business applications. Today, companies are using SAP HANA to aid real-time decision making in everything from retail stores to racing tracks.
Of course, like most technology, SAP HANA doesn’t work in a vacuum.
It’s an integral part of a broader solution that includes hardware, software, services and other business applications. To get the most value and the fastest results from a SAP HANA implementation, businesses need to surround it with the right environment. That environment includes data servers that have been optimized for the SAP HANA architecture, integration with existing business applications and analytical tools from various vendors.
Ultimately, it’s not enough to have a big data solution. Businesses first need to build a business case around it—i.e., Why do we need a big data solution? How can it help our business?—and then integrate big data analytics into their existing processes so that the flow of business intelligence reaches the right people at the right moment of decision, right away. This is where a systems integrator like AdvizeX can make a big difference in big data.
If you’d like to learn more about big data solutions like SAP HANA, talk to AdvizeX. We offer on-site meetings, technology briefings and off-site seminars at no cost to help companies see not only how big data can help their business, but also to see the bigger picture of business intelligence as it affects their whole enterprise. ▪