Your daily digest of “All Things Big Data” gathered, collected and researched by your very own 10Fold Big Data Practice team.
Big Data
Many companies of various sizes believe they have to collect their own data to see benefits from big data analytics. Forbes has put together a list of 35 free data sets for anyone willing to analyze them. Some of these include US Government owned websites – data.gov, and the US Census Bureau census.gov/data.html. Others range from educational organizations (UCLA) to research institutions (National Climatic Data Center).
Instead of building a single, huge data lake, many companies now prefer to build their own “data ponds.” This is done to have more control over data and infrastructure with extra flexibility and efficiency. Yet the problem with data ponds is the fear of them turning into ‘data swamps.’ This is when the data becomes a nightmare for the IT department and the efficiency of the pond is no longer beneficial to the organization. Building a single data lake should be the answer but it’s not that easy. Although consolidation of data and compute with conventional big data tools has some major issues, it’s clear that ponds are not sustainable in the long term. When considering restructuring data infrastructure, one must consider multiple aspects: revision of traditional data, whether or not virtualization is a fit for said data, orchestration, and resource contention.
Big Data: 35 Brilliant And Free Data Sources for 2016 – Forbes
Big Data Lakes? Too many ponds, that’s the problem – The Register
IoT
Microsoft is attempting to tackle the world of smartphones, and tablets, but they’re also focusing on cloud-computing and the technology’s position as the backdrop to military operations. Microsoft recently developed a proof-of-concept that can track operational information regarding military brigade deployments. Specifically with the use of Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing platform, armed forces can view in detail sensory and data inputs to help manage real time strategies. The tool is a great blend of raw data and real-time asset management that utilizes the growing industry of IoT.
Cisco’s acquisition of Jasper’s technologies sheds some light on the IoT industry. First, IoT management platforms are leading the market. Cisco’s acquisition of Jasper represents a strong validation that IoT management services such as analytics, management, or security, are generating more traction in the market compared to IoT solution development services. Second, consolidation in the IoT market is happening early. Third, IoT incumbents are playing hard, early. This acquisition is another sign that top enterprise software companies are committed to lead innovation in the enterprise IoT space. Fourth, Cisco is now relevant with IoT manufacturers and consumers. One of the unique aspects of the Jasper IoT platform is that it was not only used by enterprise customers, but also by IoT service providers and manufacturers. This unique market position will offer Cisco’s IoT solutions a series of distribution channels typically hard to develop by other enterprise IoT platform providers. Lastly, it’s getting harder for IoT standalone platforms to compete, as this acquisition has proven another example of the competitiveness in the enterprise IoT market and the challenges faced by IoT platform startups trying to survive as standalone companies.
Microsoft’s latest Azure powered proof-of-concept combines the military and IoT – WinBeta
5 things we learned from Cisco’s acquisition of Jasper Technologies – CIO
Cognitive Computing
Last year, Gartner predicted that by 2017, most business users and analysts will have access to self-service tools to prepare data for analysis. To capture that market, IBM launched Watson Analytics in December 2014 as a new kind of analytics solution designed for non-traditional data scientists or statisticians. The service extends cognitive computing to line-of-business users by linking natural language processing with guided data discovery, and in doing so, helps users remove bias from their analysis by providing suggestions on starting points for interrogating their data. This slideshow by eWeek shows which companies are utilizing IBM’s Watson, and how.
Putting IBM’s Watson Analytics to Work – From Law to Universities – eWeek
Software Defined Networks
The SDS market has been hampered by the limited vision and proprietary objectives of the leading hypervisor vendors. TechTarget shares two reasons why you should not lose faith despite all the hype surrounding the software-defined storage market. First is the delivery of specialized archival gateway appliances as virtual machines. Second is the introduction of adaptive parallel I/O technology, which leverages a full SDS stack to optimize raw storage I/O throughput and delivers ridiculously fast processing at an extraordinarily low cost.
AT&T today announced a roadmap for research, development and ultimate commercialization of next-generation 5G mobile networks in partnership with Ericsson and Intel. John Donovan, chief strategy officer and group president for AT&T Technology and Operations, said the the new network type would enable advanced applications like virtual reality, self-driving cars, robotics, smart cities and more.
Bringing focus to the software-defined storage market – Tech Target
AT&T unveils 5G roadmap; SDN, NFV key enablers – RCR Wireless News