Enterprises seek solutions that will help end users access all the data sources and datasets they need for decision making, as well as support deeper and more insightful analysis. This is expected to deliver competitive differentiation in today’s environment. Still, there is a lot of work to do, as many datasets are still locked away within proprietary systems or departmental silos. Plus, there is a dearth of data analytics skills across the industry. Solutions on the market are designed to address the data integration and processing requirements that are required to ingest and manage large, varied quantities of data.
2. Data Is the Fuel for the Internet of Things
Big data is also fueling another trend sweeping the enterprise space—the Internet of Things. As the Internet of Things gains traction as a business driver, databases and analytics will play a key role. The ability to interact with and manage various environments—from automobiles to homes to production-floor machines—is based on the ability to collect real-time data from these environments and move them to appropriate applications, or provide decision makers performance updates.
For many solutions providers in today’s data market, the starting point is the collection, analysis and management of sensor data. For insurers, for example, this is data collected from telematics devices installed in policyholders’ vehicles, tracking their driving patterns to offer potential discounts. For manufacturers, it means embedding sensors into products that will deliver streams of performance data and provide opportunities to notify customers of the need for new maintenance or replacement parts. GE has termed this the “industrial internet,” which is making many of the touchpoints in the world smarter.
Call it what you will—the Internet of Things or industrial internet—the rise of these smart products and environments requires effective data platforms that can handle vast arrays of streaming unstructured data.
3. Cloud and Database-as-a-Service Are the New Enterprise Backbone
Without the cloud, it’s likely there would be precious little activity or possibilities with big data analytics and the Internet of Things. With almost limitless capacity and rapid provisioning capabilities, cloud platforms have become optimum delivery and support vehicles for many vendors’ solutions. Database-as-a-service, or DBaaS, is a subset of this trend, providing rapid and ubiquitous access to information from a variety of sources.
There are many cloud-based big data solutions emerging that offer functionality on demand, along with more rapid deployment, low upfront cost, and ?scalability. Many database vendors now support data management and storage capabilities via a cloud or software-as-a- service environment. In addition, vendors are also optimizing their data products to be able to leverage cloud resources—either as the foundation of private clouds, or running in on-premises server environments that also access application programming interfaces (APIs) or web services for additional functions.
Data virtualization, a close relative of cloud, is also on the rise as a way to bring data from across the enterprise together when and where it is needed. DBaaS takes data management and analytics far beyond its traditional home in the data center or the database environment. DBaaS allows for the designing, building, testing, and provisioning of applications at any time, anywhere in the organization. It provides a scalable environment that is ready on demand, without the need for developers to work with administrators to create a database instance. It also paves the way for mobile access.
The Unisphere Research Quick Poll finds that a majority of IT and data managers, 54%, run cloud in some capacity, to support their data environments. The largest segment, 35%, run databases in a private cloud, while 18% now run public cloud databases. About one-third run on-premises databases that support public or private cloud services. Eighty-two percent intend to step up their use of cloud databases, and 36% say the increase will be “significant.”
Types of Cloud-Oriented Databases
We run databases in a private cloud - 35%
We run databases in the public cloud - 8%
We run an on-premises database that supports private cloud services - 18%
We run an on-premises database that supports public cloud services - 13%
Other - 1%
We do not have cloud-oriented databases at our location - 46%