Big data delivers unprecedented volumes of information that could be used to benefit business; but the real business differentiator is velocity of data, delegates heard at the TIBCO D2 Digital Difference Seminar in Johannesburg this week.
Citing the IDC Digital Universe study 2014, which predicted the amount of data would grow tenfold in the next six years - from 4.4 zettabytes in 2013 to 44ZB by 2020 - Kevin Bohan, director of product marketing at TIBCO, said future business success depends on making good use of all the available data.
But having access to the data after the fact is not ideal. Maurizio Canton, CTO for TIBCO Software EMEA, said: "Businesses need to take an intelligent approach to data use. They need to move quickly and be more agile."
He added businesses that would succeed in future would be those that could harness both big data and current data for immediate insights. "Big data technology allows us to manage data about what happened in the past. But it is important to have velocity too.
"You need a business intelligence point of view as well as a real-time point of view to make instant decisions at the moment it matters. Instead of just using big data to determine what happened, you need fast data to influence what is about to happen," he said.
Building a fast data architecture depends on a number of things, Canton said. "Integration of all the data and applications is the foundation," he noted.
"On top of this, you need intelligent technologies such as events processing technologies, live analytics, discovery and alerting. You need human insight, visual analytics; and solutions for automated actions and contextual processes."
Critically, he added, these fast data solutions have to be user-friendly, as well as simple to integrate and build on.
TIBCO's fast data solutions have been built to meet these criteria, he said, and are already benefiting businesses around the world.
Canton cited use cases such as the Swiss Federal Railway's intelligent system to monitor and control its network in real-time. The system delivers real-time events management that allows the railway to anticipate and avoid delays, create real-time mathematical models of train performance and network behaviour and reduce staffing and operational costs, among a number of benefits.
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