Taming The Big Data Tidal Wave: Finding Opportunities in Huge Data Streams with Advanced Analytics

CHAPTER 5

The Evolution of Analytic Processes

What does the increased scalability discussed in Chapter 4 buy an organization? Not much, if it isn’t put to use. Upgrading technologies to today’s scalable options won’t provide a lot of value if the same old analytical processes remain in place. It will be a lot like buying a new 3-D TV with all the bells and whistles, and then simply connecting it to an antenna, grabbing local TV signals from the air. The picture might be improved over your old TV, but you certainly won’t be changing your viewing experience very much compared to what is possible with the new TV.

Similarly, as the options practitioners of advanced analytics have in terms of scalability evolve, so, too, must the processes used to generate and deploy analytics. Legacy processes for deploying analytic routines simply aren’t able to take advantage of the current state of the world. Without changing key aspects of existing analytical processes, organizations will not realize more than a fraction of the gains in power and productivity that are possible with the new levels of scalability available today. It isn’t possible to tame big data using only traditional approaches to developing analytical processes.

One process that needs to be changed is the process of configuring and maintaining workspace for analytic professionals. Traditionally, this workspace was on a separate server dedicated to analytical processing. As already discussed, in-database processing is becoming ...