It’s the time of year for looking ahead and gaze into the future to ponder where data management and analytics technology are headed. As I have done for the past few years, I step up to offer my vision and make predictions for what’s to come in 2015. I also look back at 2014 to see how my predictions for that year held up.
First, a look at 2015:
1. 2015 is the year of the Chief Analytics Officer (CAO). As companies of all sizes look to not just gather data but to strategically apply it to all corners of the enterprise, the CAO is gaining in importance and quickly achieving Rock Star status. It is the “ultimate big data job” and with good reason: Increasingly, organizations strive to turn their data into strategic assets, and the CAO position supports the move from traditional data warehousing and business intelligence to applying data analytics practices upon its data for business benefit and bottom-line gain. For assurance of this prediction, we can look at New York City Mayor Bill de Lazio’s recent appointment of Amen Ra Mashariki as the city’s first CAO.
2. The Healthcare industry will leapfrog other industries to become the model for the effective use of technology. From saving lives to managing medical records - and powered by The Internet of Things (IoT) - the healthcare industry will blaze ahead with technology that taps into the power of smartphones, social media, electronic medical devices and wearable sensors streaming big data. I belive 2015 will be the year of “disruption” for the Healthcare industry as existing and emerging technologies allow for faster and more efficient patient care and service delivery.
3. Heightened demand for Consulting Services for Big Data Engineering, Big Data Governance, and Data Science. This trio of services will be top priority for any data-driven organization and key to the Big Data paradigm. Increasingly, businesses understand that preserving the integrity and consistency of their data is a non-negotiable if they want to remain competitive. As Big Data becomes an even more integral part of the enterprise and backbone of the business, there will be higher demand for smart data consulting services.
4. The IoT will mature from acronym to changing the way businesses capture data. It’s said that 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last two years. That measurement is about to be dwarfed as by 2015, some 25 billion devices will be connected to the Internet and it is the power of their capability to create their own streaming data that promises to transform the way we live. The idea of manual transaction data capture goes away and dynamic, real-time ingestion and application of information will dominate.
Now let’s look at the predictions for 2014 to see how I did (with some updates for 2015):
1. Relational databases will be further challenged by NoSQL databases.
Prediction Status: Accurate
Data projects need schema flexibility and ability to scale out. While relational databases are still prevalent, NoSQL columnar databases such as Cassandra and Hbase are used in data environments where high speed and volume is required. Installations of document databases like MongoDB are now widespread, and key-value databases like Redis and Riak are unbeatable for reference data lookups. The enterprise is finally thinking polyglot persistence using different database models, depending upon the use case instead of sticking with just one technology. Look for standardization around the NoSQL paradigm to mature in 2015.
2. Search technology will domonate Business Intelligence.
Prediction Status: Accurate, but still evolving
As Big Data technologies mature, the use of traditional methods of BI tools on top of a relational database is questioned. The convergence of BI and search technologies on your corporate data has become a reality so businesses can “Google" their structured and unstructured data to get the business intelligence they are looking for. Products like Microsoft’s PowerBI now include a search-based graphical BI solution. Attivio is another tool in the BI market that uses Search technology.
Being able to ask questions in plain English and get the answers you want is a scarce reality - but there will be more adoption this year. Look to LucidWorks and other emerging companies to offer more products in this space in 2015.
3. IT will move to Hybrid Cloud solutions and Hybrid IT Organization:
Prediction Status: Accurate - still evolving.
Migration to the Cloud by the enterprise is in full-force! However, because of privacy and security concerns, there is hesitation in some industries. The Hybrid Cloud, in which a business uses both private and public cloud storage solutions for their data, offers the best of both worlds when it comes to low-cost and elasticity of the cloud, as well as the safety of your own infrastructure. With the hybrid cloud, quicker and more agile development projects are possible with the stability and confidence of a private production environment.
Joe Caserta (
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