Open source data warehousing models have a lot of advantages, the ability to scale horizontally and cheaply among them, but traditional warehousing techniques have their strengths as well, said Vipul Sharma, principle software engineer and engineering manager at Eventbrite, at Structure:Data. Read more »
The problem for many companies is that user information is spread across hundreds or even thousands of different fields in various databases, and it’s difficult to compile it in real time. But doing that successfully is becoming increasingly important, says WiBiData at Structure:Data. Read more »
We’re walking around with sensors in our pockets: those of us carrying smartphones, anyway. As said at Structure:Data, there are huge opportunities for companies to improve existing services and create new ones with the huge amount of data provided by mobile computers. Read more »
Scott Metzger, VP of analytics at flash-memory array maker Violin Memory, argued at Structure:Data that putting flash memory at the heart of big-data infrastructure is a must for any business that is worried about how long it takes to get results from data analysis. Read more »
Los Alamos National Laboratory is trying to build to an exascale computer, which could process one billion billion calculations per second. The man in charge of executing that vision, however, sees a big obstacle toward building it. That problem, discussed at Structure:Data, is resilience. Read more »
There are plenty of benefits from making data available to large repositories. But Trend Micro’s Dave Asprey said at Structure:Data one thing holding enterprises back from putting their data in the cloud is the lack of security of what they’re sharing. Read more »
It’s easier to crunch massive amounts of data when you don’t have to reinvent the wheel for every scenario. Sultan Meghjji and his colleagues at Appistry are hoping to make this process run more smoothly, Meghjji explained at Structure:Data. Read more »
Is it possible that most people will be likely to have their DNA profile within the next 5 years? Yes it is, according to Andreas Sundquist, CEO and co-founder of DNAnexus, who suggested this to the audience at Structure:Data. Read more »
When running databases, how do you get the speed you want while offering the flexibility and cost savings of the cloud? At Structure:Data, Wordnik co-founder Tony Tam described how his company was able to move its relational database from dedicated hardware to the cloud. Read more »
“Anticipation denotes intelligence.” Zubin Dowlaty, VP and head of innovation and development of analytics-outsourcing firm Mu Sigma, said at Structure:Data that’s what companies need to be striving for and in this era of big data, the barriers to achieving that have fallen away. Read more »
Companies who are concerned with privacy and bandwidth issues, but who want to take advantage of the processing power of Hadoop, are actively pursuing a “pump to Hadoop and pull from Hadoop structure,” according to Hortonworks’ Ari Zilka, speaking at Structure:Data on Thursday. Read more »
Data collected can be useful to retailers in many ways, but not necessarily in the ways that one might expect, as discussed at Structure:Data. For example, did you know that there’s a correlation between the music you listen to and the things you might buy? Read more »
At Structure:Data, DataXu showed off its technology in the form of a writhing map of colors that reflected consumer sentiment to cell phone promotions. In practice, this means that a phone company’s ad campaign would automatically increase or decrease offers for contracts or free phones or pre-paid plans. Read more »
Consumers have long been trading their personal data in return for access to Web sites like Facebook. The tradeoff has worked well for companies and consumers but, as the pool of data grows, so have privacy concerns. At Structure:Data, panelists say the current so-called solutions are misguided. Read more »
Over time, we’re generating massive amounts of new data, and as it gets bigger, it becomes a challenge to gain insights through traditional database queries. At Structure:Data, SQLstream CEO Damian Black proposes how to solve this problem. Read more »
Hadoop may be the current leader of the pack when it comes to handling big data, but LexisNexis says at Structure:Data the system it developed for its own internal data use — and recently open-sourced — is a viable alternative and in some cases is superior. Read more »
Machine-generated data, the non-intelligible zeros and ones that are generated by sensors and other devices, is no longer just for geeks. While it looks like gibberish forward-thinking consumers are already pressing that “gibberish” data into service, according to speakers at Structure: Data 2012. Read more »
In the same way a microscope helps augment the innate ability of the human eye, Quid is trying to create tools to augment how we as humans process unstructured data and visualize it, said Sean Gourley, co-founder and CTO of Quid at Structure:Data 2012. Read more »
It’s tough to overcome some of the biases that have become second nature in most businesses. But if you’re John Lucker, who’s a Principal at Deloitte, overcoming the “human factor” can be critical to the success of driving organizational change. Overcoming that is necessary, however. Read more »
The amount of data processed by companies big and small increases every day – and data centers have a hard time keeping up. Not only is scaling the physical infrastructure costly, it also consumes vast amounts of energy. A solution was discussed at Structure:Data. Read more »
Next-generation online banking service ZestCash uses data to help qualify people for short term loans. The company explains at Structure:Data it has been giving $300 to $800 loans to users based on thousands of variables, which are boiled down to 10 models. Read more »
Hadoop is a great platform for storing and processing data, but it needs applications to make it truly valuable. At Structure:Data, Cloudera CEO Mike Olson discussed the dearth of pro analytics apps using Hadoop, and invited the startups building them to come to him for money. Read more »
Humans have to be part of the equation when it comes to interpreting and processing data if we want to get the most value out of it, argued Arnab Gupta, CEO and founder of Opera Solutions at Structure:Data. Gupta advocates for making data small. Read more »
If 80 percent of new data created is going to be unstructured, where is all that data coming from? It’s coming from consumers’ activities online and it requires real-time processing, said Continuuity’s Todd Papaionnou at Structure:Data. Read more »
Predicting risk is key to the way insurance companies figure out your monthly rates and premiums, and it needs data and time to do so. Allstate said at Structure:Data that the best use of this data was to give it to the 30,000 scientists competing on Kaggle. Read more »
Robert Lefkowitz, director of web development at 1010data, argued at Structure:Data 2012 for why desktop-based or browser-based spreadsheets aren’t the solution if you have tons of data you need to put to work… Read more »
If IBM Distinguished Engineer Jeff Jonas ever invites you for a friendly game of puzzle, be prepared: Jonas likes to leave out half of the pieces, or introduce false positives from other puzzle sets. These kinds of experiments have taught him a lot about data analytics. Read more »
How do you or your business get the most value out of all the data you’ve accessed about your customers? At Structure:Data, Nick Weir, CEO of ChoozOn, gave some basic tips on the most important things to consider when mining your data. Read more »
One of the oldest problems in business, getting different groups to communicate with each other, could be solved by one of the newest online phenomenon: social tools. Two industry leaders explained how to break down these silos through social at the Structure:Data conference. Read more »
Companies are grappling with how to make use of all their data, facing the challenge of teasing out insights quickly and with flexibility. Moving to the cloud opens up security and privacy questions. But the effort can be worth it, says Google’s Ju-kay Kwek at Structure:Data. Read more »
Cloud technologies still lag behind on-premise tools in some key ways, but are unbeatable in enabling “one single guy” to complete large BI projects, We Are Cloud’s Rachel Delacour said at Structure:Data today. Read more »
Business not using machine learning to augment the products and services will find it difficult to compete in the future according to panelists at GigaOm’s Structure:Data event on Wednesday. These companies’ competitive disadvantage will get worse as machine learning solutions gain more intelligence. Read more »
Businesses understand now that big data can help them wring revenue out of once-unproductive assets. But that just fuels an exploding demand for bigger, faster, and more precise big data applications, experts speaking at Structure:Data say. Read more »
On March 21 and 22, at Structure:Data, we’ll look at how companies like @WalmartLabs, IBM, and PayPal are using big data and how technologies like Hadoop are evolving to help them analyze that data. Watch the livestream and read our blogs of the event here. Read more »
