Cloud Computing Key to Tapping into Big Data Capabilities
June 21, 2013
The big data market is exploding, as a recent Gartner study revealed that IT departments will spend $28 billion on the technology in 2012. In 2013, that total is expected to jump to $34 billion.
At the same time, IT professionals are starting to realize that big data works best in conjunction with other technology. The Gartner study predicted that by 2015, big data will essentially be embedded into software programs and corporate infrastructures.
“[Big data] represents an industry-wide market force, which must be addressed in products, practices and solution delivery,” said Mark Beyer, research vice president at Gartner.
In a recent interview with TechTarget, Brian Lent, chief technology officer at Medio, suggested that cloud computing could help unlock the benefits of big data analytics.
“The combination of cloud computing and big data is going to become more practical, simply because of the efficiencies of scale,” Lent told the news source. “The ability for any one company to keep up from an IT perspective, I think, is difficult.”
Lent said that he believes cloud computing and big data could become integrated with general IT in the future, predicting they will become “part of the core decision-making” process when chief information officers are deciding on new products.
Enterprise benefits
A recent report by InformationWeek highlighted some of the advantages big data can provide companies – most notably predictive analysis, which Nate Silver used to accurately project the winner of every state in the presidential election.
According to the news source, big data can play a significant role in the decision-making process, as well as enhancing the ability to make those choices at the right moment. Whether it’s used when balancing a budget, deciding when to raise prices or how to roll out a new marketing campaign, big data’s predictive capability has the potential to pay big dividends.