CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 20

STRAIGHT TALKING

In practical terms, big data means it is
now feasible to collect, store, and use all
available data, leading to new insights
derived from ever-more sophisticated
analytics. This presents a great opportunity
to increase the value of existing data
while also preparing the ground for the
deluge of additional data expected to be
unleashed by the Internet of Things, or IoT,
the network of information generated by
people, objects, and the environment.
How did we get to this place? Historically,
large data sets needed to be structured
and stored in a very specific way in order to
then apply queries and analytics. From the
columns and rows of what conceptually
was much like a vast spreadsheet, deriving
insights was an inflexible process where
the very structure of the data was
predefined and tended to make the range
of conclusions all but inevitable. In that
environment, out-of-the-box thinking was
almost impossible.
Today, big data technologies have
overcome the limitations of past
practices by breaking data sets into
multiple components, distributing and
analyzing those components on different
processors, and then aggregating the
results to deliver a meaningful picture
of the whole that is not constrained by a
specific, preordained order or structure.
As the ability to use all that data and run
analytics on it has increased and improved,
businesses are suddenly able to access
new types of insights. It is the "art of the
possible" for data. Furthermore, now that
the analysis encompasses all the data
rather than just samples, the results are
more accurate, and you can look at data in
connection with more scenarios, sources,
geographies, and applications. Your view
of what is possible starts to broaden.

20

REMEMBER,
BIG DATA
MEANS BIG.
MORE IS
GENERALLY
BETTER.
THINK ABOUT
THE KIND OF
INSIGHTS
BIG DATA
MIGHT BE
ABLE TO
PROVIDE,
AND THEN GET
READY FOR
THE NEXT
STEPS, wHEN
YOU wILL
MOVE
AHEAD AND
ENGAGE THE
ORGANIzATION.
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3
